From: Maurice A. O'Sullivan (mauros@iol.ie)
Date: Sun Sep 03 2000 - 14:52:49 EDT
<x-flowed>Jim:
On the subject of walls you might like to know <g> :
Pausanius: Description of Greece 8.8.7
>>
7] Later on a Lacedaemonian army under Agesipolis, the son of Pausanias,
invaded their territory. Agesipolis was victorious in the battle and shut
up the Mantineans within their walls, capturing the city shortly after. He
did not take it by storm, but turned the river Ophis against its
fortifications, which were made of unburnt brick. [8] Now against the
blows of engines brick brings greater security than fortifications built of
stone. For stones break and are dislodged from their fittings; brick,
however, does not suffer so much from engines, but it crumbles under the
action of water just as wax is melted by the sun. [9] This method of
demolishing the fortifications of the Mantineans was not discovered by
Agesipolis. It was a stratagem invented at an earlier date by Cimon, the
son of Miltiades, when he was besieging Boges and the other Persians who
were holding Eion on the Strymon.1 Agesipolis only copied an established
custom, and one celebrated among the Greeks. <<<
Regards
Maurice
Maurice A. O'Sullivan [ Bray, Ireland ]
mauros@iol.ie
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