Problem: In lines 85-89 of the passage from The Aeneid (see link on this week's Readings page), life in Carthage seems to have ground to a halt. As the text says, "The towers that were started rise no more, the young men do not practise their weapon-drills, or keep the harbours and ramparts safe from war: the building operations are suspended with the massive threatening walls and the crane silhouetted against the sky." Why? What has derailed the city's progress? What do you make of that concluding image of the cranes silhouetted against the sky? What's going on here?