Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/275

 11, 78] SIEGE OF PLA TAEA 159 resolved to try whether, the wind favouring, the place, which was but small, could not be set on fire ; they were anxious not to incur the expense of a regular siege, and devised all sorts of plans in order to avoid it. So they brought faggots and threw them down from the mound along the space between it and the wall, which was soon filled up when so many hands were at work ; then they threw more faggots one upon another into the city as far as they could reach from the top of the mound, and casting in lighted brands with brimstone and pitch, set them all on fire. A flame arose of which the like had never before been made by the hand of man ; I am not speaking of fires in the mountains, when the forest has spontaneously blazed up from the action of the wind and mutual attrition. There was a great conflagration, and the Plataeans, who had thus far escaped, were all but destroyed ; a consider- able part of the town was unapproachable, and if a wind had come on and carried the flame that way, as the enemy hoped, they could not have been saved. It is said that there was also a violent storm of thunder and rain, which quenched the flames and put an end to the danger. The Peloponnesians, having failed in this, as in their 78 former attempts, sent away a part of FaiUug in their ai- their army but retained the rest% and 'empt, they draw a d- •!• ,1, 1 ,1 .•. double wall round the ividmg the task among the contmgents •, j ,■ 1 ■ ° _ * " city aim retire, leaving of the several cities, surrounded Plataea « guard of themselves with a wall. Trenches, out of which and the Boeotians. they took clay for the bricks, were formed both on the inner and the outer side of the wall. About the rising of Arcturus^ all was completed. They then drew off their army, leaving a guard on one half of the wall, while the other half was guarded by the Boeotians; the disbanded troops returned to their homes. The Plataeans had already conveyed to Athens ^ their wives, children, and old men. "■ Retaining in the text to l Konrhv afcvrts. ^ i. e. about the middle of September. , « ii. 6 fin.