208 HISTORICAL TALES.

This was not all that was done. Battering engines
were used against the walls to break them down.
These the defenders caught by long ropes, pulling
the heads of the engines upward or sideways. They
also fixed heavy wooden beams in such a manner
that when the head of an engine came near the wall
they could drop a beam suddenly upon it, and break
off its projecting beak.

In these rude ways the attack and defence went
on, until three months had passed, and Archidamus
and his army found themselves where they had
begun, and the garrison still safe and defiant. The
besiegers next tried to destroy the town by fire.
From the top of the mound they hurled fagots as
far as they could within the walls. They then threw
in pitch and other quick-burning material, and finally
set the whole on fire. In a brief time the flames
burst out hotly, and burnt with so fierce a conflagra-
tion that the whole town was in imminent danger
of destruction. Nothing could have saved it had the
wind favored the flames. There is a story also that
a thunder-storm came up to extinguish the fire,—but
such opportune rains seem somewhat too common in
ancient history. As it was, part of the town was
destroyed, but the most of it remained, and the
brave inmates continued defiant of their foes.

Archidamus was almost in despair. Was this
small town, with its few hundred men, to defy and
defeat his large army? He had tried the various
ancient ways of attack in vain. The Spartans, with
all their prowess in the field, lacked skill in the
assault of walled towns, and were rarely success-