Res Gestae

Then the enemy, horrified and maddened by the unexpected mishap, set aside all delay, and since force was having little effect, now planned to decide the contest by siege-works; and all of them, fired with the greatest eagerness for battle, now hastened to meet a glorious death or with the downfall of the city to make offering to the spirits of the slain.

And now through the zeal of all the preparations were completed, and as the morning star shone forth various kinds of siege-works were brought up, along with ironclad towers, on the high tops of which ballistae were placed, and drove off the defenders who were busy lower down.

And day was now dawning, when mail-clad soldiers underspread the entire heaven, and the dense forces moved forward, not as before in disorder, but led by the

But when their approach brought them within bowshot, though holding their shields before them the Persian infantry found it hard to avoid the arrows shot from the walls by the artillery, and took open order, and almost no kind of dart failed to find its mark; even the mail-clad horsemen were checked and gave ground, and thus increased the courage of our men.

However, because the enemy’s ballistae, mounted as they were upon iron-clad towers, were effective from their higher place against those lower down, on account of their different position they had a different result and caused terrible carnage on our side; and when evening was already coming on and both sides rested, the greater part of the night was spent in trying to devise a remedy for this awful slaughter.

And at last, after turning over many plans, we resolved upon a plan which speedy action made the safer, namely, to oppose four scorpions[*](The scorpion was an engine for hurling stones, also called onager, wild ass. It is described in xxiii. 4, 4 ff.) to those same ballistae; but while they were being moved exactly opposite and cautiously put in place (an act calling for the greatest skill) the most sorrowful of days dawned upon us, showing as it did formidable bands of Persians along with troops of elephants, than whose noise and huge bodies the human mind can conceive nothing more terrible.

And while we were hard pressed on every side by weight of armed men, siege-works, and monsters, round stones hurled at intervals from the battlements by the iron arms of our scorpions shattered

For even the king of the Persians himself, who is never compelled to take part in battles, aroused by these storms of ill-fortune, rushed into the thick of the fight like a common soldier (a new thing, never before heard of) and because he was more conspicuous even to those who looked on from a distance because of the throng of his body-guard, he was the mark of many a missile; and when many of his attendants had been slain he withdrew, interchanging the tasks of his tractable forces, and at the end of the day, though terrified by the grim spectacle neither of the dead nor of the wounded he at last allowed a brief time to be given to rest.