History of the Peloponnesian War

At the same time that they were raising the mound, the Peloponnesians brought engines also to play upon the city; one of which, being brought up close to the wall, shook down a considerable part of the great building, and terrified the Plataeans. Others were advanced against different parts of the wall; but the Plataeans broke them off by throwing nooses around them. They also suspended great beams by long iron chains from the extremity of two levers, which were laid upon the wall, and stretched out beyond it; and having drawn them up at an angle, whenever the engine was going to fall on any point, by loosing the chains and not holding them tight in hand, they let the beam drop; which, falling on it with great impetus, broke off the [*]( Arnold thinks that the battering engine ended in a point, to force its way into the wall, rather than with a thick solid end, merely to batter it; and so that τὸ προέχον τῆς ἐμβολῆς answers exactly to τὸ τρύτανον in a parallel passage quoted by him from Aeneas Tacticus.) head of the battering-ram.

After this, when their engines were of no avail, and the building of the wall was going on in opposition to the mound, the Peloponnesians, thinking it impossible to take the city by their present means of offence, prepared for circumvallating it.

First however they determined to make an attempt upon it by fire, [and see] whether with the help of a favourable wind they could burn the town, as it was not a large one: for they thought of every possible device, if by any means it might be reduced by them without the expense of a siege.

They took therefore faggots of brushwood, and threw them from the mound; at first into the space between it and the wall, and when that had soon been filled by the many hands at work, they piled them up also as far into the town as they could reach from the height; and then lighted the wood by throwing on it fire with sulphur and pitch.

By this means such a flame was raised as no one had ever yet seen produced by the hand of man; [though natural conflagrations might have exceeded it;] for ere now the wood of a mountain forest has been known to take fire of itself, and to emit a flame in consequence, through the mutual attrition of the boughs by high winds.

This fire, however, was a great one, and was within very little of destroying the Plataeans, after they had escaped all their other dangers; for there was a considerable part of the town within which it was not possible to approach; and if a wind had risen to blow upon it, as their enemy hoped, they would not have escaped.

As it was, however, the following occurrence is also said to have favoured them; a heavy rain and thunder-storm came on, and quenched the flame; and so the danger ceased.

When the Peloponnesians had failed in this attempt also, they left behind them a certain part of their force, [having disbanded the rest,] and proceeded to raise a wall of circumvallation round the town, dividing the whole extent amongst the contingents of the different states. There was a ditch, too, both inside and outside of the lines, from which they made their bricks.

All being finished by about the [*]( i. e. its morning rising, nearly coincident with the autumnal equinox.) rising of Arcturus, they left troops to man half the extent of the wall, (the other half being manned by the Boeotians,) and retired with their army, and dispersed to their different cities.