There was a river on the rear, in front and on either side a kind of steep bank completely surrounded its extremity.

Beneath this and lower down was another plain of gentle declivity, which was also surrounded by a similar ridge equally difficult of ascent.

Into this lower plain Hasdrubal, the next day, when he saw the troops of the enemy drawn up before their camp, sent his Numidian cavalry and light-armed Baleares.

Scipio riding out to the companies and battalions, pointed out to them, that "the enemy having abandoned, beforehand, all hope of being able to withstand them on level ground, had resorted to hills: where they stood in view, relying on the strength of their position, and not on their valour and arms." But the walls of Carthage, which the Roman soldiers had scaled, were still higher.

That neither hills, nor a citadel, nor even the sea itself, had formed an impediment to their arms.