Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/265

 STRATAGEMS, III. iv. 1-6

IV. Bv WHAT Means the Enemy may he Reouced TO Want

Fabius Maximus, having laid waste the lands of the Campanians, in order that they might have nothing left to warrant the confidence that a siege could be sustained, withdrew at the time of the sowing, that the inhabitants might plant what seed they had remaining. Then, returning, he destroyed the new crop and thus made himself master of the Campanians, whom he had reduced to famine.^

Antigonus employed the same device against the Athenians.^ '

Dionysius, having caj)tured many cities and wish- ing to attack the Uhegians, who were well provided with supplies, pretended to desire peace, and begged of them to furnish provisions for his army. When he had secured his request and had consumed the grain of the inhabitants, he attacked their town, now stripped of food, and conquered it.'^

He is said to have employed the same device also against the people of Himera.*

When Alexander ^ was about to besiege Leucadia, a town well-supplied with provisions, he first cap- tured the fortresses on the border and allowed all the people from these to flee for refuge to Leucadia, in order that the food-supplies might be consumed with greater rapidity when shared by many.

Phalaris of Agrigentum, when besieging certain places in Sicily protected by fortifications, pretended to make a treaty and deposited with the Sicilians all the Avheat which he said he had remaining, taking pains, howevei*, that the chambers of the buildings in Avhich the grain was stored should have

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