Page:The History of Armenia - Avdall - Volume 1.djvu/236

 called asses, built in the form of chests, with covers of extraordinary thickness, drawn by three persons, and used in the following way. They were brought close under tl)e walls, and, from their peculiar construction, there was a sufficient empty space beneath them to hold several men, who, secured from harm by the cover above, could undermine the battlements at their ease. When many of these are joined together they afford shelter and protection to a body of men, whose operations rarely fail in destroyingthestrongestfortifications. The Greek prisoners having drawn forward these formidable engines, or moveable batteries, if we may so call them, with their instruments commenced un- dermining the walls of Tigranakert. Great, however, was the labour required to move the tremendous foundation stones, laid there by Tigranes the Great. When the Armenians saw these operations from the battlements, they divided their forces into parts ; one of which was employed in galling the Persians with their arrows, the other in annoying the miners below, by rolling stones down upon them. But the latter were in perfect security from the bulwark their machines afforded them above, the stones making no impression upon them. Shapuh, observing that already one side of the battlement was shaking, and the other sides

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