12. Again, when a rampart was being prepared against the wall in front of them, and the place was heaped up with felled trees and works placed there, by shooting at it with the ballistae red-hot iron bolts they set the whole work on fire. And when a ram-tortoise had approached to batter down the wall, they let down a noose, and when they had caught the ram with it, winding it over a drum by turning a capstan, having raised the head of the ram, they did not allow the wall to be touched, and finally they destroyed the entire machine by glowing fire-darts and the blows of, ballistae. Thus by such victory, not by machines but in opposition to the principle of machines, has the freedom of states been preserved by the cunning of architects. Such principles of machines as I could make clear, and as I thought most serviceable for times of peace and of war, I have explained in this book. In the nine earlier books I have dealt with single topics and details, so that the entire work contains all the branches of architecture, set forth in ten books.FINIS
Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture. Vitruvius. Morris Hicky Morgan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. London: Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. 1914.
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