Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/283

 STRATAGEMS, III. ix. 8-x. z

he distracted the attention of the defenders of the city, till he brought iip by sea the ships provided with towers, and advanced against the walls at the point were no resistance was offered.

Pericles, when about to lay siege to a fortress of the Peloponnesians to which there were only two avenues of approach, cut oflone of these by a trench and began to fortify the other. The defenders of the fortress, thrown off their guard at one point, began to watch only the otherwhere they saw the building going on. But Pericles, having prepared bridges, laid them across the trench and entered tiie fortress at the point where no guard was kept.^

Antiochus, when fighting against the Ephesians, directed the Khodians, whom he had as allies, to make an attack on the harbour at night with a great uproar. When the entire population rushed headlong to this quarter, leaving the rest of the fortress with- out defenders, Antiochus attacked at a different quarter and captured the town.

X. On Settinc; Traps to Draw out the Besieged

When Cato was besieging the Lacetani, he sent away in full view of the enemy all his other troops, while ordering certain Suessetani, who were the least martial of all his allies, to attack the walls of the town. When the Lacetani, making a sortie, easily repulsed these forces and pursued them eagerly as they fled, the soldiers whom Cato had placed in hiding rose up and by their help he captured the town.^

When campaigning in Sardinia, Lucius Scipio, in order to draw out the defenders of a certain city, abandoned the siege which he had begun, and pre-

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