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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: protected by the windings of the gaps, the velites were able to seize
and mount them before being overtaken. Several even made their way to
the bottom of the ravine; they were drawn up with cables, for the
ground at this spot was of moving sand, and so much inclined that it
was impossible to climb it even on the knees. The Barbarians arrived
almost immediately. But a portcullis, forty cubits high, and made to
fit the intervening space exactly, suddenly sank before them like a
rampart fallen from the skies.
The Suffet's combinations had therefore succeeded. None of the
Mercenaries knew the mountain, and, marching as they did at the head
of their columns, they had drawn on the rest. The rocks, which were
Salammbo |
