On the city's western side King Ninus straightway urged a fierce assault, and from dawn till dusk the battlements resounded with the crash of mighty stones. Great creaking towers of metal-plated wood were pushed against the wall, while from their swaying tops the Assyrians flung out bridges, battling with the Bactrians hand to hand. Anon they would win a foothold among their enemies who repelled them with swords and spears, or destroyed their towers by means of engines of strange and devilish design. These engines, set on wheels and dragged to given points along the parapet, were fashioned in the form of a mighty bow whose missiles were trunks of trees with sharpened points. These shafts were soaked in oil and smeared with pitch or resinous gum, and before discharge they were set on fire, then crashed into the clumsy towers, to stick and wrap the whole in flames, while the choked Assyrians leaped down to death or roasted in the wreck. So, thus, for the space of a moon King Ninus toiled, compassing naught save the bitterness of defeat, grave loss of his men-at-arms, and destruction to his engines of assault.
On Zariaspa's eastern walls Assyria made no attack. Menon foresaw that the city must be won by strategy rather than by might; therefore he put his camps in order, looking to the health and comfort of his men ere he sacrificed their lives in a fruitless siege.
To lessen the toil of bearing water from the distant hills, he commanded that wells be dug in every camp; and having sunk these wells—many to the depth of thirty cubits—his wisdom was rewarded by the bounty of Mother Earth. Now toward the north the digging was in vain, while southward the shallower wells gave forth a cool, sweet flow of water; and the reason thereof was a sore perplexity, albeit, in after-days the solving of the riddle was, to Semiramis, a simple task.
Next, Menon caused his chariots to be set in double lines and tilted upon their tails. From their upright harness-poles he stretched wide canopies of cloth and matted grass; thus, in the noon-day heat, which ever increased in fierceness as the summer grew, his men might rest beneath a grateful shade. This joyed the Assyrians mightily, and where chariots there were none, they planted their spears and devised a roof of vines and the boughs of trees. 'Twas a little thing, this thought for the common soldiery, yet it bought an army utterly, and the Prince was looked upon with pride.
Then to Menon came the thought that if he alone could see beyond the city walls, a marked advantage might be scored against the King; and for many days he rolled the problem in his brain, till suddenly he laughed aloud and summoned a messenger to his side. This messenger, presently, rode southward, skirting the city wall, till he crossed the dividing road and came to the western camp, where he found King Ninus in a fretful mood.
"O King," spoke the messenger, falling upon his knees, "my master sendeth greeting to the lord of Earth and Heaven, and speaketh through the mouth of his humble slave. Because of the height of Zariaspa's walls, the lord of Assyria knoweth naught of what the Bactrians do within; therefore my master urgeth that a mighty mound of earth be raised to the reach of forty cubits above the plains."
"How now!" cried Ninus, angrily. "Wherefore should I do this foolish thing?"
"Nay, lord," the messenger made reply, "I do but recount my master's words. From the summit of this mound the King might dispose his armies with a wider view; and, likewise, mark the weakest points within the foemen's walls. This, my lord, is all, save thy royal answer which my master chargeth me to bear."
Now had Ninus himself devised the plan, it might have seemed good to him; yet, coming from Menon in the form of fatherly advice and spoken in the presence of a score of chiefs, it roused the monarch's ire. His brow grew black with rage; he rose and spurned the messenger with his foot.
"Go back," he thundered, "and say that Ninus fighteth upon the earth, and not in the manner of kites above the clouds. Urge, also, that the meddler hold his tongue, lest Asshur tempt me and I cut it out. Begone!"