The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus / During the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and Valens

by Ammianus Marcellinus

7. And, not to omit anything which was necessary to do before the heat of the contest was renewed, he sent prudent men to the garrison to offer them two conditions; either to withdraw to their own country, giving up what did not belong to them, without causing bloodshed by resistance, or else to become subjects of the Romans, in which case they should receive rank and rewards. But when they, with native obstinacy, resisted the demands as became men of noble birth, who had been hardened by dangers and labours, everything was prepared for the siege.

8. Therefore the soldiers with alacrity, in dense order, and cheered by the sound of trumpets, attacked every side of the town; and the legions, being protected by various kinds of defences, advanced in safety, endeavouring by slow degrees to overthrow the walls; and because all kinds of missiles were poured down upon them, which disjoined the union of their shields, they fell back, the signal for a retreat being given.

9. Then a truce was agreed upon for one day; but the day after, having protected themselves more skilfully, they again raised their war-cry, and tried on every side to scale the walls. And although the garrison, having stretched cloths before them not to be distinguished, lay concealed within the walls; still, as often as necessity required, they boldly put out their arms and hurled down stones and javelins on their assailants below.

10. And while the wicker penthouses were advanced boldly and brought close to the walls, the besieged dropped upon them heavy casks and millstones, and fragments of pillars, by the overpowering weight of which the assailants were crushed, their defences torn to pieces, and wide openings made in them, so that they incurred terrible dangers, and were again forced to retreat.

11. Therefore, on the tenth day from the beginning of the siege, when the confidence of our men began to fill the town with alarm, we determined on bringing up a vast battering-ram, which, after having destroyed Antioch with it sometime before, the Persians had left at Carrhæ; and as soon as that appeared, and was begun to be skilfully set up, it cowed the spirits of the besieged, so that they were almost on the point of surrendering, when they again plucked up courage and prepared means for resisting this engine.

12. From this time neither their courage nor their ingenuity failed; for as the ram was old, and it had been taken to pieces for the facility of transporting it, so while it was being put together again, it was attacked with great exertions and vigour by the garrison, and defended with equal valour and firmness by the besiegers; and engines hurling showers of stones, and slings, and missiles of all sorts, slew numbers on each side. Meantime, high mounds rose up with speedy growth; and the siege grew fiercer and sterner daily; many of our men being slain because, fighting as they were under the eye of the emperor, and eager for reward, they took off their helmets in order to be the more easily recognized, and so with bare heads, were an easy mark for the skilful archers of the enemy.

13. The days and nights being alike spent in watching, made each side the more careful; and the Persians, being alarmed at the vast height to which the mounds were now carried, and at the enormous ram, which was accompanied by others of smaller size, made great exertions to burn them, and kept continually shooting firebrands and incendiary missiles at them; but their labour was vain, because the chief part of them was covered with wet skins and cloths, and some parts also had been steeped in alum, so that the fire might fall harmless upon them.

14. But the Romans, driving these rams on with great courage, although they had difficulty in defending themselves, disregarded danger, however imminent, in the hope of making themselves masters of the town.

15. And on the other hand, when the enormous ram was brought against the tower to which it was applied, as if it could at once throw it down, the garrison, by a clever contrivance, entangled its projecting iron head, which in shape was like that of a ram, with long cords on both sides, to prevent its being drawn back and then driven forward with great force, and to hinder it from making any serious impression on the walls by repeated blows; and meanwhile they poured on it burning pitch, and for a long time these engines were fixed at the point to which they had been advanced, and exposed to all the stones and javelins which were hurled from the walls.