History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides
Thucydides. The history of the Peloponnesian War, Volume 1-2. Dale, Henry, translator. London: Heinemann and Henry G. Bohn, 1851-1852.
Nay, the Boeotians were much more impious in wishing to give back dead bodies in return for sanctuaries, than they were who would not at the price of sanctuaries recover things not suitable [for such bartering].
They begged, then, that they would simply tell them to take up their dead, not
after evacuating the territory of the Boeotians—for they were no longer in their territory, but in one which they had won with their arms—but,
on making a truce according to the custom of their fathers.
The Boeotians replied, that
if they were in Boeotia, they might take up their dead after evacuating their country; but if in Athenian territory, then [*]( i. e. they might take them away when they pleased. But, as Arnold remarks, the Boeotians knew all the time that this was merely vexatious; for the Athenians would not bury their dead without their leave, whether the ground which they occupied belonged to Attica or to Boeotia. ) they knew themselves what to do:considering that the Oropian territory, in which the bodies happened to be lying, (for the battle was fought on the borders,) was indeed subject to Athens, and yet that the Athenians could not get possession of them without their consent. Nor, again, were they disposed, they said, to grant any truce for a country belonging to Athens; but they thought it was a fair answer to give, that
when they had evacuated the Boeotian territory, they might then recover what they asked.So the herald of the Athenians, after hearing their answer, returned without effecting his object.
The Boeotians immediately sent for dartmen and slingers from the Malian gulf, and having been reinforced since the battle by two thousand Corinthian heavy-armed, and the Peloponnesian garrison which had evacuated Nisaea, and some Megareans with them, they marched against Delium and assaulted the fortress, both attempting it in other ways, and bringing against it an engine of the following description, which was the means of taking it.
Having sawn a great beam in two, they hollowed out the whole of it, and fitted it nicely together again, like a pipe, and hung by chains at the end of it a caldron, into which was placed an iron bellows-pipe, inclining from the beam, the timber also being for a considerable distance covered with iron.
This they brought up from a distance on carts to that part of the wall where it had been chiefly built of the vines and timber; and when it was near, they applied great bellows to the end of the beam next themselves, and blew them.
The blast passing closely confined into the caldron, which held lighted coals, sulphur, and pitch, produced a great flame, and set fire to a part of the wall; so that no one could any longer stand upon it, but they left it and took to flight; and in this way the fortress was taken.