History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

But the Peloponnesians, when they found it out, took clay and therewith daubing hurdles of reeds cast the same into the chink, which mouldering not, as did the earth, they could not draw it away.

The Plataeans, excluded here, gave over that plot, and digging a secret mine, which they carried under the mount from within the city by conjecture, fetched away the earth again and were a long time undiscovered; so that still casting on, the mount grew still less, the earth being drawn away below and settling over the part where it was voided.