History of the Peloponnesian War

After this, the Peloponnesians, seeing that their engines were doing no good and that the counter-wall was keeping pace with the mound, and concluding that it was impracticable without more formidable means of attack to take the city, began to make preparations for throwing a wall about it.

But before doing that they decided to try fire, in the hope that, if a wind should spring up, they might be able to set the city on fire, as it was not large; indeed, there was no expedient they did not consider, that they might if possible reduce the city without the expense of a siege.

Accordingly they brought faggots of brushwood and threw them down from the mound, first into the space between the wall and the mound; and then, since the space was soon filled up by the multitude of workers, they heaped faggots also as far into the city as they could reach from the height, and finally threw fire together with sulphur and pitch upon the wood and set it afire.

And a conflagration arose greater than any one had ever seen up to that time, kindled, I mean, by the hand of man; for in times past in the mountains when dry branches have been rubbed against each other a forest has caught fire spontaneously therefrom and produced a conflagration.

And this fire was not only a great one, but also very nearly destroyed the Plataeans after they had escaped all earlier perils; for in a large part of the city it was not possible to get near the fire, and if on top of that a breeze had sprung up blowing toward the city, which was precisely what the enemy were hoping for. the Plataeans would not have escaped.

But as it was, this also is said to have happened—a heavy thunder-shower came on and quenched the flames, and so the danger was checked.