|
Chapter 13 § 96. The Siege of Fortified Towns.
|
 |
A Day in Old Athens, by William Stearns Davis (1910)
Professor of Ancient History at the University of Minnesota |
Chapter XIII. The Armed Forces of Athens.
96. The Siege of Fortified Towns.--If, however, one party cannot
be induced to risk an open battle; or if, despite a defeat, it allows
the enemy to ravage the fields, and yet persists in defending the
walls of its town,--the war is likely to be tedious and indecisive.
It is notorious that Greeks dislike hard sieges. The soldiers
are the fellow townsmen of the generals. If the latter order an
assault with scaling ladders and it is repulsed with bloody loss,
the generals risk a prosecution when they get home for "casting
away the lives of their fellow citizens."[*] In short, fifty men
behind a stout wall and "able to throw anything" are in a position
to defy an army.
[*]In siege warfare Oriental kings had a great advantage over Greek
commanders. The former could sacrifice as many of their "slaves"
as they pleased, in desperate assaults. The latter had always to
bear in mind their accountability at home for any desperate and
costly attack.
The one really sure means of taking a town is to build a counter
wall around it and starve it out,--a slow and very expensive,
thought not bloody process. Only when something very great is at
stake will a Greek city-state attempt this.[*] There is always
another chance, however. Almost every Greek town has a discontented
faction within its walls, and many a time there will be a traitor
who will betray a gate to the enemy; and then the siege will be
suddenly ended in one murderous night.
[*]As in the siege of Potidea (432-429 B.C.), when if Athens had
failed to take the place, her hold upon her whole empire would have
been jeopardized.
This resource page is copyright © 2002 N.S. Gill.
