History of the Peloponnesian War

When the Peloponnesians had failed in this attempt also, they dismissed the larger part of their army, leaving only a portion of it, and proceeded to throw a wall around the city, apportioning the space to the several cities; and there were ditches both inside and outside the wall, out of which they had taken the clay for the bricks.

And when the wall was entirely finished about the time of the rising of Arcturus,[*](About the middle of September.) they left a guard to watch one half of the wall (the Thebans guarded the other half), and withdrew the main army, the troops dispersing to their several cities.

But the Plataeans had previously had their children and wives, as well as the oldest men and the unserviceable part of the population, removed to Athens, and the men left behind to undergo the siege were only four hundred of their own number and eighty Athenians, besides one hundred and ten women to prepare the food.

This was the number all told when the siege began, and there was no one else within the walls, slave or freeman. Such were the conditions under which the siege of the Plataeans was established.