History of the Peloponnesian War

Having said such things and encouraged them, when the truce expired he proceeded to make assaults upon Lecythus; but the Athenians defended themselves from a paltry fort and from such houses as had battlements, and beat them back for one day.

On the next day, however, when the enemy were about to bring against them an engine from which it was intended to throw fire upon the wooden defences, and the army was already coming up, they set up a wooden tower on a house at the point where they thought the enemy most likely to bring up his engine and where the wall was most assailable, and carried up many jars and casks of water and big stones, and many men also ascended.

But the house, being over-weighted, collapsed suddenly and with a great noise, annoying rather than frightening the Athenians who were near and saw it; but those who were at a distance, and especially those furthest off, thinking that in that quarter the place had already been taken, set off in flight for the sea and their ships.