The Mercenaries would often let them approach, shouting to them that they wished to surrender; then, with frightful sneers, they would kill themselves at a blow, and as the dead fell, the rest would mount upon them to defend themselves.

It was a kind of pyramid, which grew larger by degrees.
Soon there were only fifty, then only twenty, only three, and lastly only two--a Samnite armed with an axe, and Matho who still had his sword.
The Samnite with bent hams swept his axe alternately to the right and left, at the same time warning Matho of the blows that were being aimed at him.

"Master, this way! that way! stoop down!" Matho had lost his shoulder-pieces, his helmet, his cuirass; he was completely naked, and more livid than the dead, with his hair quite erect, and two patches of foam at the corners of his lips,--and his sword whirled so rapidly that it formed an aureola around him.

A stone broke it near the guard; the Samnite was killed and the flood of Carthaginians closed in, they touched Matho.

Then he raised both his empty hands towards heaven, closed his eyes, and, opening out his arms like a man throwing himself from the summit of a promontory into the sea, hurled himself among the pikes.
They moved away before him.