As was natural in a surprise attack, there was considerable confusion and alarm, but a stouter resistance was offered than any one would have believed possible in such sudden danger. The men fought from the walls, the women carried up to them stones and missiles of every description, and though the scaling-ladders were placed at very many points against the walls, the defence was maintained for that day. [2] Towards noon Acilius gave the signal for retiring, and took his troops back into camp, where they took food and rest. Before he dismissed his staff, he warned his men to be armed and ready before daybreak, and told them that till they had carried the city he should not take them back to camp. [3] As on the previous day, he delivered several simultaneous assaults, and as the strength, the weapons, above all the courage, of the defenders began to fail, he took the city in a few hours. [4] The booty found there was partly sold and partly divided amongst the soldiers. After the capture a council of war was held to decide what was to be done next. No one was in favour of going on to Naupactus as long as the Aetolians held Mount Corax. However, to avoid wasting the summer in inaction, and to prevent the Aetolians, after they had failed to obtain peace from the senate, from enjoying it through his own lack of enterprise, Acilius determined to attack Amphissa. He marched the army over Mount Oeta. [5] and when he reached the city he did not, as at Lamia, attempt a combined assault upon the entire circuit of the walls, but he commenced a regular siege. The rams were brought up at several points, and though the walls were being battered, the townsmen made no attempt to prepare or invent anything to meet this kind of engine. [6] All their hopes lay in their arms and their courage; they made frequent sorties and harassed the detached posts and even the men who were working the rams.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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