Histories

and no sooner has this yield of the middle country been gathered than the highest-lying crops are mellow and ripe, so that the latest fruits of the earth are coming in when the earliest are already spent by way of food and drink. Thus the Cyrenaeans have a harvest lasting eight months. Enough of these matters, then.

Now when the Persians that Aryandes sent from Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt to avenge Pheretime came to +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce,[*](The story broken off in Hdt. 4.167 is resumed.) they laid siege to the city, demanding the surrender of those who were guilty of the murder of Arcesilaus: but the Barcaeans, whose whole people were accessory to the deed, would not yield.

The Persians besieged +Al Marj [20.833,32.5] (inhabited place), Al Jabal al Akhdar, Libya, Africa Barce for nine months, digging underground passages leading to the walls, and making violent assaults. As for the tunnels, a blacksmith discovered them by the means of a bronze shield, and this is how he found them: carrying the shield around the inner side of the walls, he struck it against the ground of the city;