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77.
After this the Peloponnesians, finding that
their engines effected nothing, and that their mound was met by the
counter-work, concluded that their present means of offence were unequal to
the taking of the city, and prepared for its circumvallation.
[2]
First, however, they determined to try the effects of fire and see whether
they could not, with the help of a wind, burn the town as it was not a large
one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the place might be
reduced without the expense of a blockade.
[3]
They accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the
mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next
heaped the faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top,
and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and pitch.
[4]
The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet seen produced
by human agency, though it could not of course be compared to the
spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur through the wind rubbing
the branches of a mountain forest together.
[5]
And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also, at
the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible, and had a wind blown
upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the enemy, nothing could have saved
them.
[6]
As it was, there is also a story of heavy rain and thunder having come on
by which the fire was put out and the danger averted.
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References (35 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(6):
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.2
- E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 2, 2.5
- T. G. Tucker, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 8, 8.105
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER C
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXVII
- C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXXV
- Cross-references to this page
(5):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.pos=2.2
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.5.2
- A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), IGNIARIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PLATAEA
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(24):
- LSJ, ἄπορος
- LSJ, ἀνίημι
- LSJ, ἀντιτείχ-ισμα
- LSJ, αὐτό-μα^τος
- LSJ, δεῖ
- LSJ, ἐλα?́χιστ-ος
- LSJ, ἐντός
- LSJ, ἐπέχω
- LSJ, ἐπίφορ-ος
- LSJ, ἐπι-φλέγω
- LSJ, ἐπιπαρα-νέω
- LSJ, φάκελος
- LSJ, φλόξ
- LSJ, παραβάλλω
- LSJ, πελάζω
- LSJ, περιτείχ-ι^σις
- LSJ, πολυ^-χειρία
- LSJ, πρόσχωσις
- LSJ, προσάγω
- LSJ, θεῖον
- LSJ, σβέννυ_μι
- LSJ, τρίβω
- LSJ, ὕδωρ
- LSJ, χειρο-ποίητος
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