Smoking Out the Enemy
By assiduously working the battering rams the Romans
were always breaking down this or that part of the wall. But
yet they could not succeed in storming any of these breaches,
because the besieged were energetic in raising counter walls,
and the Aetolians fought with determined gallantry on the
debris.
The Romans begin mining operations. |
They, therefore, in despair had recourse to mines and
underground tunnels. Having safely secured
the central one of their three works, and carefully
concealed the shaft with wattle screens, they
erected in front of it a covered walk or stoa about two hundred
feet long, parallel with the wall; and beginning their digging
from that, they carried it on unceasingly day and night, working
in relays.
Counter-mines by the besieged. |
For a considerable number of days the besieged
did not discover them carrying the earth away through the
shaft; but when the heap of earth thus brought out became
too high to be concealed from those inside the
city, the commanders of the besieged garrison
set to work vigorously digging a trench inside,
parallel to the wall and to the stoa which faced the towers.
When the trench was made to the required depth, they next placed
in a row along the side of the trench nearest the wall a number
of brazen vessels made very thin; and, as they walked along the
bottom of the trench past these, they listened for the noise of
the digging outside. Having marked the spot indicated by
any of these brazen vessels, which were extraordinarily sensitive
and vibrated to the sound outside, they began digging from
within, at right angles to the trench, another underground
tunnel leading under the wall, so calculated as to exactly hit
the enemy's tunnel. This was soon accomplished, for the
Romans had not only brought their mine up to the wall, but
had under-pinned a considerable length of it on either side of
their mine; and thus the two parties found themselves face to
face. At first they conducted this underground fighting with
their spears: but as neither side could do much good, because
both parties protected themselves with shields and wattles,
some one suggested another plan to the defenders.
Putting in
front of them an earthenware jar, made to the width of the
mine, they bored a hole in its bottom, and, inserting an iron funnel of the same length as the
depth of the vessel, they filled the jar itself with
fine feathers, and putting a little fire in it close to the mouth
of the jar, they clapped on an iron lid pierced full of holes.
They carried this without accident through the mine with its
mouth towards the enemy. When they got near the besiegers
they stopped up the space all round the rim of the jar, leaving
only two holes on each side through which they thrust spears
to prevent the enemy coming near the jar. They then took a
pair of bellows such as blacksmiths use, and, having attached
them to the orifice of the funnel, they vigorously blew up the
fire placed on the feathers near the mouth of the jar, continually withdrawing the funnel in proportion as the feathers
became ignited lower down. The plan was successfully executed; the volume of smoke created was very great, and, from
the peculiar nature of feathers, exceedingly pungent, and was
all carried into the faces of the enemy. The Romans, therefore, found themselves in a very distressing and embarrassing
position, as they could neither stop nor endure the smoke in
the mines.
1 The siege being thus still further protracted the
Aetolian commander determined to send an envoy to the Consul. . . .
