Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/267

 STRATAGEMS, III. iv. 6-v. 3

leaky voofs. Then when the Sicilians, relying on the wheat which Phalaris had deposited with them, had used up their own supplies, Phalaris attacked them at the beginning of summer and as a result of their lack of provisions forced them to surrender. 1

V. How TO Persuade the Enemy that the Siege WILL BE Maintained

When Clearchus, the Spartan, had learned that the Thracians had conveyed to the mountains all things necessary for their subsistence and were buoyed up by the sole hope that he would withdraw in con- sequence of lack of supplies, at the time when he surmised their envoys would come, he ordered one of the prisoners to be put to death in full view and his body to be distributed in pieces among the tents, as though for the mess. The Thracians, believing that Clearchus would stick at nothing in order to hold out, since he brought himself to try such loath- some food, delivered themselves up.^

When the Lusitanians told Tiberius Gi'acchus that they had supplies for ten years and for that reason stood in no fear of a siege, he answered: "Then I'll capture you in the eleventh year." Terror- stricken by this language, the Lusitanians, though well supplied with provisions, at once surren- dered.^

When Aulus Torquatus was besieging a Greek city and was told that the young men of the city were engaged in earnest practice with the javelin and bow, he replied : " Then the price at which I shall presently sell them shall be higher."

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