History of the Peloponnesian War

Having made this protestation to the gods, he made ready his army for the war. And first having felled trees, he therewith made a palisade about the town that none might go out. That done, he raised a mount against the wall, hoping with so great an army all at work at once, to have quickly taken it.

And having cut down wood in the hill Cithaeron, they built a frame of timber and wattled it about on either side to serve instead of walls to keep the earth from falling too much away and cast into it stones and earth and whatsoever else would serve to fill it up.

Seventy days and nights continually they poured on, dividing the work between them for rest in such manner as some might be carrying, whilst others took their sleep and food. And they were urged to labour by the Lacedaemonians that commanded the mercenaries of the several cities and had the charge of the work.

The Plataeans, seeing the mount to rise, made the frame of a wall with wood which, having placed on the wall of the city in the place where the mount touched, they built it within full of bricks taken from the adjoining houses for that purpose demolished, the timber serving to bind them together that the building might not be weakened by the height.

The same was also covered with hides and quilts both to keep the timber from shot of wildfire and those that wrought from danger.

So that the height of the wall was great on one side, and the mount went up as fast on the other. The Plataeans used also this device: they brake a hole in their own wall where the mount joined and drew the earth from it into the city.