Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/274



7.  The besieged being encouraged by the issue of this first conflict, and hoping for still better success, disregarded the rest of the attacks made on them; and with resolute minds they stationed engines in suitable positions, and with unwearied toil discharged the duties of watching and of whatever else could tend to their safety.

8.  On the other hand, the besiegers, though fearing another combat, and full of anxiety, still out of shame would not appear lazy or cowardly, and as they could make no way by open attacks, they also applied themselves to the various manoeuvres employed in sieges. And because there was no ground favourable for working battering-rams or other engines, nor for making mines, since the river Natiso passed under the walls of the city, they contrived a plan worthy to be compared with any effort of ancient skill.

9.  With great rapidity they built some wooden towers, higher than the battlements of the enemy, and then fastening their boats together, they placed these towers on them. In them they stationed soldiers, who, with undaunted resolution, laboured to drive down the garrison from the walls; while under them were bodies of light infantry wholly unencumbered, who going forth from the hollow parts of the towers below, threw drawbridges across, which they had put together beforehand, and so tried to cross over to the bottom of the wall while the attention of the garrison was diverted from them; so that while those above them were attacking one another with darts and stones, those who crossed over on the drawbridges might be able without interruption to break down a portion of the wall and so effect an entrance.

10. But once more a clever design failed in its result. For when the towers came close to the walls, they were assailed with brands steeped in pitch, and reeds, and faggots, and every kind of food for flames, all kindled. The towers quickly caught fire, and yielding under the weight of the men who were mounted on them, fell into the river, while some of the soldiers on their summits, even before they fell, had been pierced with javelins hurled from the engines on the walls, and so died.

11. Meanwhile the soldiers at the foot of the wall, being cut off by the destruction of their comrades in the boats, were