Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/273

 74-76] SIEGE OF PLATAEA 157 After this appeal to the Gods he began miUtary opera- 75 tions. In the first place, the soldiers felled the fruit-trees and surrounded /,,.,„, ),,e 'pcI.,/..,,,- the city with a stockade, that hencefortli tusmns raise a mound, no one might get out. They then '^"^^ ""' ■^««^«"*" began to raise a mound against it, ,j,^ /,,,^;„ „^- „ ^,^,, ,;^ thinking that with so large an army at their tvM mid i>yd,aw- work this would be the speediest way '"-^ ^"'"■^' '■'"^' •/"" 01 taking the place. So they cut timber from Cithaeron and built on either side of the intended mound a frame of logs placed cross-wise in order that the material might not scatter. Thither they carried wood, stones, earth, and anything which would fill up the vacant space. They continued raising the mound seventy days and seventy nights v^'ithout intermission ; the army was divided into rela3's, and one party worked while the other slept and ate. The Lacedaemonian officers who com- manded the contingents of the allies stood over them and kept them at work. The Plataeans, seeing the mound rising, constructed a wooden frame, which they set upon the top of their own wall opposite the mound ; in this they inserted bricks, which they took from the neighbouring houses ; the wood served to strengthen and bind the structure together as it increased in height ; they also hung curtains of skins and hides in front ; these were designed to protect the wood-work and the workers, and shield them against blazing arrows. The wooden wall rose high, but the mound rose quickly too. Then the Plataeans had a new device ;— they made a hole in that part of the wall against which the mound pressed and drew in the earth. The Peloponnesians discovered what they were doing, 76 and threw into the gap clay packed in This plan bring dc- wattles of reed, which could not scatter fcaud, the Plataeans jviiii iiL -J build a second line of and hke the loose earth be carried away. ^^^^^^^.^ ^^, .^^^ . ^ ^^^^ . . J^ Whereupon the Plataeans, baffied in n^all in the form of a one plan, resorted to another. Calcu- crescent.