studies; finding himself neglected in his old age, by Pericles, who, in the multiplicity of the public affairs, had not always time to think of him ;* wrapped his cloak about his head, and threw himself on the ground, in the fixed resolution to starve himself. Pericles hearing of this accidentally, ran with the utmost haste to the philosopher's house, in the deepest affliction. He conjured him, in the strongest and most moving terms, not to throw his life away; adding, that it was not Anaxagoras, but himself that was to be lamented, if he was so unfortunate as to lose so wise and faithful a friend; one who was so capable of giving him wholesome counsels, with regard to the pressing occasions of the state. Anaxagoras then uncovering his head a little, spoke thus to him; "Pericles, those who use a lamp, take care to feed it with oil." This was a gentle, and at the same time a strong and piercing reproach. Pericles ought to have supplied his wants unasked. Many lamps are extinguished in this manner in a country, by the criminal negligence of those who ought to supply them.

SECTION III.

THE LACEDEMONIANS BESIEGE PLATEA. FOURTH AND FIFTH

YEARS OF THE WAR.

THE most memorable transaction of the following years was the siege of Platea by the Lacedemonians.

* It was the custom of those to cover their heads with their cloaks who were reduced to despair, and resolved to die.

y A. M. 3576. Ant. J. C. 428. Thucyd. 1. ii. p. 147–151. Diod. xxii. p. 102-109.

This was one of the most famous sieges in antiquity, on account of the vigorous efforts of both parties; but especially for the glorious resistance made by the besieged, and their bold and industrious stratagem, by which several of them got out of the city, and by that means escaped the fury of the enemy. The Lacedemonians besieged this place in the beginning of the third campaign.. As soon as they had pitched their camp round the city, in order to lay waste the places adjacent to it, the Plateans sent some deputies to Archidamus, who commanded on that occasion, to represent that he could not attack them with the least shadow of justice, because, that, after the famous battle of Platea, Pausanias, the Grecian general, offering up a sacrifice in their city to Jupiter, the deliverer, in presence of all the allies, had given them their freedom to reward their valor and zeal; and therefore, that they ought not to be disturbed in the enjoyment of their liberties, since it had been granted them by a Lacedemonian. Archidamus answered, that their demand would be very reasonable, had they not joined with the Athenians, the professed enemies to the liberty of Greece; but that, if they would disengage themselves from their present alliance, or at least remain neuter, they then should be left in the full enjoyment of their privileges. The deputies replied, that they could not possibly come to any agreement, without first sending to Athens, whither their wives and their children were retired. The Lacedemonians permitted them to send thither; when the Athenians promising solemnly to succour them to the utmost of their power, the Plateans resolved to suffer the last extremitics rather than

surrender; and accordingly, they informed the Lacedemonians from their walls, that they could not comply with what was desired.

Archidamus then, after calling upon the gods to witness, that he did not first infringe the alliance, and was not the cause of the calamities which might befal the Plateans, for having refused the just and reasonable conditions offered them, prepared for the siege. He surrounded the city with a circumvallation of trees, which were laid long ways, very close together, with their boughs interwoven, and turned towards the city, to prevent any person from going out of it. He afterwards threw up a platform to set the batteries on; in hopes that, as so many hands were employed, they should soon take the city. He therefore caused trees to be felled on mount Cytheron, and interwove them with fascines, in order to support the terras on all sides; he then threw into it wood, earth and stones; in a word, whatever could help to fill it up. The whole army worked night and day, without the least intermission, during seventy days; one half of the soldiers reposing themselves, whilst the rest were at work.

The besieged observing that the work began to rise, they threw up a wooden wall upon the walls of the city opposite to the platform, in order that they might always out top the besiegers, and filled the hollow of this wooden wall with the bricks they took from the rubbish of the neighbouring houses; so that the wall of timber served in a manner as a defence to keep the wall from falling as it was carrying up. It was covered on the outside with hides both raw and dry, in order

to shelter the works and the workmen from the fires discharged against it. In proportion as it rose, the platform was raised also, which in this manner was carried to a great height. But the besieged made a hole in the opposite wall, in order to carry off the earth that sustained the platform; which the besiegers perceiving, they put large panniers filled with mortar, in the place of the earth which had been removed, because these could not be so easily carried off. The besieged, therefore, finding their first stratagem defeated, made a mine under ground as far as the platform, in order to shelter themselves, and to remove from it the earth and other materials of which it was composed, and which they gave from hand to hand, as far as the city. The besiegers were a considerable time without perceiving this, till at last they found that their work did not go forward, and that the more earth they laid on, the weaker it grew. But the besieged judging that the superiority of numbers would at length prevail; without amusing themselves any longer at this work, or carrying the wall higher on the side towards. the battery, they contented themselves with building another within, in the form of a half moon, both ends of which joined to the wall; in order that the besieged might retire behind it when the first wall should be forced; and so obliged the enemy to make fresh works.

their

In the mean time the besiegers having set up machines, doubtless after they had filled up the ditch, though Thucydides does not say this, shook the city wall in a very terrible manner, which, though it • VOL. 3.

37

alarmed the citizens very much, did not however discourage them. They employed every art that fortification could suggest against the enemy's batteries. They prevented the effect of the battering rams by ropes ; which turned aside their strokes. They also employed another artifice; the two ends of a great beam were made fast by long iron chains to two large pieces of timber, supported at due distance upon the wall, in the nature of a balance; so that whenever the enemy played their machine, the besieged lifted up this beam, and let it fall back on the head of the battering ram, which quite deadened its force, and consequently made it of no effect.

The besiegers finding the attack did not go on successfully, and that a new wall was raised against their platform, despaired of being able to storm the place, and therefore changed the siege into a blockade. However, they first endeavoured to set fire to it, imagining that the town might easily be burnt down as it was so small, whenever a strong wind should rise; for they employed all the artifices imaginable to make themselves masters of it as soon as possible, and with little expense. They therefore threw fascines into the intervals between the walls of the city and the intrenchment with which they had surrounded them, and filled these intervals in a very little time because of the multitude of hands employed by them, in order to set fire at the same time to different parts of the city. They then lighted the fire with pitch and sulphur,

which in a

z The end, downward, of these ropes formed a variety of slip knots, with which they catched the head of the battering ram, which they raised up by the help of the machine.