Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/93

 115,116] TAKING OF LECYTHUS 85 from the fortress, which was weak, and from some houses which had battlements. For a whole ^, ^ „ r The fall of a wooacn day they repulsed the assault; but /^ew^- frightais the on the morrow an engine was brought Athenians, who fly to against them, from which the Lace- "'"''^'">- daemonians proposed to throw fire upon the wooden breastwork. Just as the army was drawing near the wall, the Athenians raised a wooden tower upon the top of a building at a point where the approach was easiest and where the}' thought that the enemy would be most likely to apply the engine. To this tower they carried up numerous jars and casks of water and great stones; and many men mounted upon it. Suddenly the building, being too heavily weighted, fell in with a loud crash. This only annoyed and did not much alarm the Athenians who were near and saw what had happened, but the rest were terrified, and their fright was the greater in proportion as they were further off. They thought that the place had been taken at that spot, and fled as fast as they could to the sea where their ships lay. Brasidas witnessed the accident and observed that they 116 were abandoning the battlements. He r, ■, " _ _ Biastaas takes the at once rushed forward with his army, fo,t of Lcrvthns and captured the fort, and put to death all puis to death those who whom he found in it. Thus the "''^M"^ '" f^- Athenians were driven out ; and in their ships of war and other vessels crossed over to Pallene. There happened to be in Lecythus a temple of Athene ; and when Brasidas was about to storm the place he had made a proclamation that he who first mounted the wall should receive thirty minae-"*; but now, believing that the capture had been effected by some more than human power, he gave the thirty minae to the Goddess for the service of the temple, and then pulling down Lecythus and clearing the ground, he consecrated the whole place. The rest of this winter he " About (Cioo.