History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

Now the Plataeans had previously carried out of the town to Athens their children, and wives, and oldest men, and the mass of the inhabitants that would be of no service; but the men themselves who were left in the place and stood the siege, amounted to four hundred, with eighty Athenians, and one hundred and ten women to make bread for them.