TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—This work is divided into three volumes, all of them available on PG;
index is on third volume. It has been splitted replacing every item in
the volume where they belong. A full version of index has been
mantained at the end of third volume.
HISTORICAL
PARALLELS.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET.
1846.
LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER XIII.
Siege of Platæa—Numantia—Tyre—Syracuse—Lines of
Circumvallation—Siege of Jerusalem—Of La Réole—Effects of the
invention of gunpowder—Siege of Ostend—Magdeburg—Character of
the mercenary troops of the seventeenth century—Siege of
Zaragoza 5
CHAPTER XIV.
Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the
Circus at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792 78
CHAPTER XV.
Character of Cleon—Blockade and capture of the Lacedæmonians
at Pylos—Comparison with the capture of Porto Bello by Admiral
Vernon—Greek comedy—Sketch of the Knights of
Aristophanes—Subsequent history of Cleon—Account of the Popish
Plot—Character and history of Titus Oates—Mutilation of
the Hermæ at Athens 121
CHAPTER XVI.
Athenian expedition against Sicily—Siege of Syracuse—Retreat
and destruction of the army—Retreat of Ney in Russia—Retreat
of Sir John Hawkwood in Italy 171
CHAPTER XVII.
Sketch of the interval which elapsed between the defeat in
Sicily, and the battle of Arginusæ—Battle of
Arginusæ—Prosecution and death of the Athenian
Generals—Massacre of the De Witts—End of the Peloponnesian war 198
CHAPTER XVIII.
History and character of Socrates—Account of his
death—Prosecution of John Huss, and Jerome of Prague—Attempt
to re–establish Prelacy in Scotland—Brown—Guthrie—Reformation
in England—Account of Rowland Taylor 218
INDEX OF VOLUME III. 285
GENERAL INDEX OF PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS IN ALL VOLUMES 286
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
Medal, containing a plan of Ostend 5
Battering Ram, from Pompeii 22
Moveable Towers, from ditto 25
Plan of Zaragoza 63
Hippodrome of Constantinople 113
Medal struck after Sir E. Godfrey’s murder 151
Medal of Titus Oates 168
Prow of an ancient vessel found at Genoa 198
Disposition of Athenian fleet at Arginusæ 201
Medal struck after the massacre of the De Witts
Obverse 211
Reverse 212
Bust of Socrates 218
Head of Plato 242
The medals have been engraved from the originals in the British Museum.
HISTORICAL PARALLELS.
CHAPTER XIII.
[Illustration: Medal struck after the siege of Ostend.]
Siege of Platæa—Numantia—Tyre—Syracuse—Lines of circumvallation—Siege
of Jerusalem—Of La Réole—Effects of the invention of Gunpowder—Siege of
Ostend—Magdeburg—Character of the mercenary troops of the seventeenth
century—Siege of Zaragoza.
The cautious policy of Pericles, and the plague, combined to render
the two first years of the war barren of incidents. The third campaign
opened more energetically with the siege of Platæa, the old and
faithful ally of Athens. This is the earliest siege of which we have
any full and particular account; and some surprise may be felt at the
rudeness and inefficacy of the means employed in prosecuting it by the
most military nation of Greece. For this, however, all previous history
prepares us. To the early Greeks fortifications of any strength appear
to have presented insuperable obstacles. Not a city of any note can be
mentioned which was taken by fair fighting. Troy was impregnable by
force. Eira was taken in consequence of its being accidentally left
unguarded.[1] Ithome held out for ten years, and at last obtained
honourable terms of surrender. And when Cyrus marched against Babylon,
the inhabitants, trusting in their walls and their magazines, “made
no account at all of being besieged; but Cyrus became greatly puzzled
what to do, having spent much time there and made no progress at
all.”[2] The stratagem by which he took it at last is well known: he
laid dry the bed of the Euphrates, and introduced a body of troops
through the deserted channel; yet danger, even from this quarter, had
been foreseen and guarded against, if proper caution had been used.
Each side of the river was lined with walls, and gates were placed at
the end of the streets which led down to the water side; so that, as
Herodotus himself remarks, if the Persians had been on their guard the
attempt might have been defeated by merely closing the gates, and the
assailants might have been cut off entirely by missile weapons. But, to
return to Platæa; the Spartans were notoriously unskilled, even among
the Greeks, in this branch of warfare. Military engines they had none;
a want arising probably from their national poverty; for the ram was
known, and was employed, some say invented, by Pericles, at the siege
of Samos, some years before the Peloponnesian war broke out. It is
remarkable that from this time downwards to the invention of gunpowder,
no material discovery was made in this branch of the military art,
except the introduction of moving towers. Lines of circumvallation, as
they were the earliest, continued to be the surest means of overcoming
the pertinacious resistance of stone and mortar. Such was the case
even at Rome, after the vast influx of wealth from conquered provinces
had facilitated the construction of the largest and most expensive
machines; and the vast scale upon which those temporary enclosures were
completed, exhibits most strikingly the laboriousness of the Roman
legionaries. This, however, is foreign to our present subject. If the
reader has any curiosity respecting these works, he will find some
remarkable ones described in Cæsar’s Commentaries.[3]
Just before war broke out between Athens and Sparta, the Thebans,
always jealous of Athens, and more especially envious of its strict
connection with Platæa, over which, as the head of the Bœotian
confederacy, they claimed the same undefined but oppressive authority
which was exercised by the Athenians and other leading cities over
their allies, made an attempt to gain possession of Platæa, in concert
with a party within its walls, consisting of citizens dissatisfied
with the existing government. By the contrivance of the latter, a
body of Theban troops was introduced by night, who without a struggle
became, to all appearance, masters of the town, piled their arms in the
market–place, and invited the inhabitants to place themselves under the
protection of Thebes. But the Athenian party was greatly preponderant,
and discovering the small number of their enemies they took courage
and assaulted them. Almost all the Thebans were made prisoners, and
subsequently put to death, in contravention of a promise of personal
security implied, if not absolutely expressed in words. Immediate
notice of what had occurred was sent to the Athenians, who, considering
this as the commencement of war, removed the women and children, and
all who were unfit for military duty, from Platæa, sending thither
eighty of their own citizens to increase the garrison, and also
probably to guard against any further attempts on the part of the
disaffected.
No disturbance was given to Platæa during the two first years of the
war. At the commencement of the third, Archidamus, the Spartan king
and general, finding that the annual devastation of Attica was of no
service to the Peloponnesian confederacy, and unwilling perhaps to
incur the hazard of entering an infected country, marched to Platæa,
which, in consequence of its exertions in the Persian war, had been
invested by the general consent of Greece with privileges of an almost
sacred character. The nature of these privileges, and the singular
proposal to which they gave rise, will be best understood from the
narration of Thucydides.
“The next summer the Peloponnesians and their confederates came not
into Attica, but turned their arms against Platæa, led by Archidamus,
the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedæmonians, who, having
pitched his camp, was about to waste the territory thereof. But the
Platæans sent ambassadors presently unto him, with words to this
effect:—’Archidamus, and you Lacedæmonians, you do neither justly,
nor worthy yourselves and ancestors, in making war upon Platæa. For
Pausanias of Lacedæmon, the son of Cleombrotus, having (together
with such Grecians as were content to undergo the danger of the
battle that was fought in this our territory) delivered all Greece
from the slavery of the Persians, when he offered sacrifice in the
market–place of Platæa to Jupiter the deliverer, called together all
the confederates, and granted to the Platæans this privilege: that
their city and territory should be free; that none should make unjust
war against them, nor go about to enslave them; and if any did, the
confederates then present should use their utmost ability to revenge
their quarrel.[4] These privileges your fathers granted us for our
valour and zeal in those dangers. But now do you the clean contrary,
for you join with our greatest enemies, the Thebans, to bring us into
subjection. Therefore calling to witness the gods then sworn by, and
the gods peculiar to your ancestral descent, and our own local gods,
we require you, that you do no damage to the territory of Platæa, nor
violate those oaths; but that you suffer us to enjoy our liberty in
such sort as was allowed us by Pausanias.’[5]
“The Platæans having thus said, Archidamus replied, and said thus:—’Men
of Platæa, if you would do as ye say, you say what is just. For as
Pausanias hath granted to you, so also be you free; and help to set
free the rest, who having been partakers of the same dangers then,
and being comprised in the same oath with yourselves, are now brought
into subjection by the Athenians. And this so great preparation and
war is only for the deliverance of them and others: of which if you
will especially participate, keep your oaths; at least (as we have also
advised you formerly) be quiet, and enjoy your own, in neutrality,
receiving both sides in the way of friendship, neither side in the way
of faction. And these things will content us.’ Thus said Archidamus.
And the ambassadors of Platæa, when they heard him, returned to the
city; and having communicated his answer to the people, brought word
again to Archidamus, ‘That what he had advised was impossible for them
to perform, without leave of the Athenians, in whose keeping were their
wives and children; and that they feared also for the whole city, lest
when the Lacedæmonians were gone the Athenians should come and take
the custody of it out of their hands; or that the Thebans, as being
comprehended in the oath that they would admit both parties, should
again attempt to surprise it.’ But Archidamus, to encourage them,
made this answer: ‘Deliver you unto us Lacedæmonians your city and
your houses; show us the bounds of your territory; give us your trees
by tale, and whatsoever else can be numbered; and depart yourselves,
whither you shall think good, as long as the war lasteth. And when it
shall be ended we will deliver it all unto you again: in the mean time
we will keep these things as deposited, and will cultivate your ground,
and pay you rent for it, as much as shall suffice for your maintenance.’
“Hereupon the ambassadors went again into the city, and having
consulted with the people, made answer: ‘That they would first acquaint
the Athenians with it, and if they would consent they would then accept
the condition; till then they desired a suspension of arms, and not to
have their territory wasted.’ Upon this he granted them so many days’
truce as was requisite for their return, and for so long forbore to
waste their territory. When the Platæan ambassadors were arrived at
Athens, and had advised on the matter with the Athenians, they returned
to the city with this answer: ‘The Athenians say, that neither in
former times, since we where their confederates, did they ever abandon
us to the injury of any, nor will they now neglect us, but give us
their utmost assistance; and they conjure us, by the oath of our
fathers, not to make any alienation touching the league.’
“When the ambassadors had made this report, the Platæans resolved in
their councils not to betray the Athenians, but rather to endure, if
it must be, the wasting of their territory before their eyes, and to
suffer whatsoever misery could befal them; and no more to go forth, but
from the walls to make them this answer: ‘That it was impossible for
them to do as the Lacedæmonians had required.’ When they had answered
so, Archidamus the king first made a protestation to the gods and
heroes of the country, saying thus: ‘All ye gods and heroes, protectors
of the land of Platæa, be witnesses that we neither invade this
territory, wherein our fathers, after their vows unto you, overcame
the Medes, and which you made propitious for the Grecians to fight
in, unjustly now in the beginning, because they have first broken the
league they had sworn; nor what we shall further do will be any injury,
because though we have offered many and reasonable conditions, they
have yet been all refused. Assent ye also to the punishment of the
beginners of injury, and to the revenge of those that bear lawful arms.’
“Having made this protestation to the gods, he made ready his army for
the war. And first having felled trees, he therewith made a palisado
about the town that none might go out. That done, they raised a mound
against the wall, hoping, with so great an army all at work at once,
to have quickly taken it. And, having cut down timber in the mountain
Cithæron, they built a frame of timber and wattled it about on either
side, to serve instead of a wall, to keep the earth from falling too
much away, and cast into it stones and earth, and whatsoever else would
serve to fill it up. Seventy days and nights continually they cast up
the mound, dividing the work between them for rest in such manner, as
some might be carrying, whilst others took their sleep and food. And
they were urged to labour by the Lacedæmonian officers, who commanded
severally the contingents of the allied cities. The Platæans seeing
the mound to rise, made the frame of a wall with wood, which, having
placed on the wall of the city in the place where the mound touched,
they built it within full of bricks, taken from the adjoining houses,
for that purpose demolished; the timbers serving to bind them together,
that the building might not be weakened by the height. The same was
also covered with skins and leather, both to keep the timber from shot
of wildfire and those that wrought from danger. So that the height of
the wall was great on one side, and the mound went up as fast on the
other. The Platæans used also this device; they broke a hole in their
own wall, where the mound joined, and drew the earth from it into the
city. But the Peloponnesians, when they found it out, rammed clay into
cases made of reeds, which they cast into the cavity, with intention
that the mound should not moulder, and be carried away like loose
earth. The Platæans, excluded here, gave over that plot, and digging a
secret mine, which they carried under the mound from within the city
by conjecture, fetched away the earth again, and were a long time
undiscovered; so that the earth being continually carried out below,
it was no use to cast fresh stuff on the mound, which still settled
down into the excavation. Nevertheless, fearing that they should not be
able even thus to hold out, being few against many, they devised this
further; they gave over working at the high wall against the mound, and
beginning at both ends of it, where the wall was low, built another
wall in form of a crescent, inward to the city, that, if the great wall
were taken, this might resist, and put the enemy to make another mound,
in the continuing of which further inwards they should have their
labour over again, and withal should be more exposed on either side to
missile weapons. And at the same time that they were raising the mound,
the Peloponnesians brought to the city their engines of battery; one of
which, by help of the mound, they applied to the high wall, wherewith
they much shook it, and put the Platæans into great fear; and others to
other parts of the wall, which the Platæans broke partly by casting
ropes about them, and partly with great beams, which being hung in long
iron chains by either end upon two other great beams jetting over, and
inclining from above the wall like two horns, they drew up to them in
a horizontal position, and when the engine was about to make a blow
any where, they let go the chains and let the beam fall, which, by the
violence of its descent, broke off the head of the battering–ram.
“After this, the Peloponnesians, seeing their engines availed not, and
thinking it hard to take the city by any present violence, prepared
themselves to draw an enclosure all around it. But first they thought
fit to attempt it by fire, being no great city, and when the wind
should rise, if they could, to burn it; for there was no way they
did not think on, to have gained it without expense and long siege.
Having therefore brought faggots, they cast them from the mound into
the space between it and their new wall, which by so many hands was
quickly filled; and then into as much of the rest of the city as
at that distance they could reach; and throwing amongst them fire,
together with brimstone and pitch, kindled the wood, and raised such
a flame, as the like was never seen before, made by the hand of man.
For it has been known that a forest in the mountains has taken fire[6]
spontaneously from the friction of its boughs in a high wind, and burst
into flames. But this fire was a great one, and the Platæans, that had
escaped other mischiefs, wanted little of being consumed by this; for
there was a large part of the town within which it was impossible to
approach; and if the wind had blown the fire that way (as the enemy
hoped it might) they could never have escaped. It is also reported that
there fell uch rain then, with great thunder, and that the flame was
extinguished and the danger ceased by that.
“Now the Peloponnesians, when they failed likewise of this, retaining a
part of their army, and dismissing the rest, enclosed the city about
with a wall, dividing the circumference thereof to the charge of the
several cities. There was a ditch both within and without it, out of
which they made their bricks; and after it was finished, which was
about the rising of Arcturus,[7] they left a guard for one–half of the
wall (for the other was guarded by the Bœotians), and departed with the
rest of their army, and were dissolved according to their cities. The
Platæans had before this sent their wives and children and all their
unserviceable men to Athens. The rest were besieged, being in number
of the Platæans themselves four hundred, of Athenians eighty, and one
hundred and ten women to dress their meat. These were all when the
siege was first laid, and not more, neither free nor bond, in the city.
In this manner were the Platæans besieged.”[8]
The blockade continued for about a year and a half, during which the
historian does not advert to it. At the end of that time, in the
winter, B. C. 428–7, the garrison, after deliberation, being pressed by
hunger and despairing of any help from Athens, resolved to abandon the
city, and force a passage through the line of circumvallation. Half the
number took alarm at the seeming rashness of the attempt, and declined
to share it; but about two hundred and twenty persisted in their
resolution. We now return to the historian’s narrative:—
“As for the wall of the Peloponnesians, it was thus built; it consisted
of a double circle, one towards Platæa, and another outward, in case of
an assault from Athens. These two walls were distant one from the other
about sixteen feet; and that sixteen feet of space between them was
disposed and built into cabins for the force that kept the works, which
were so joined and continued one to another, that the whole appeared
to be one thick battlements stood a great tower of the same breadth
as the walls, and stretching across them from the inner to the outer
face, so that there was no passage by the side of a tower, but through
the midst of it. And such nights as there happened any storm of rain,
they used to quit the battlements of the wall, and to watch under the
towers, as being not far asunder, and covered beside overhead. Such was
the form of the wall wherein the Peloponnesians kept their watch.
“The Platæans, after they were ready, waiting for a tempestuous night
of wind and rain, and withal moonless, went out of the city, and were
conducted by those men who had proposed the attempt. And first they
passed the ditch that was about the town, and then came up close to
the wall of the enemy, who through the darkness could not see them
coming, nor hear them for the clatter of the storm, which drowned the
noise of their approach. And they came on besides at a good distance
one from the other, that they might not be betrayed by the clashing
of their arms; and were but lightly armed, and not shod but on the
left foot, for the more steadiness in the mud. They came thus to the
battlements in one of the spaces between tower and tower, knowing that
there was now no watch kept there. And first came they that carried
the ladders, and placed them to the wall; then twelve lightly armed,
only with a dagger and a breast–plate, went up, led by Ammeas, the son
of Coræbus, who was the first that mounted; and after him ascended
his followers, to each tower six. To these succeeded others lightly
armed, that carried the darts, for whom they that came after carried
targets at their backs, that they might be the more expedite to get
up, which targets they were to deliver to them when they came to the
enemy. At length, when most of them were ascended, they were heard by
the watchmen that were in the towers; for one of the Platæans, taking
hold of the battlements, threw down a tile, which made a noise in the
fall, and presently there was an alarm, and the army ran to the wall,
for in the dark and stormy night they knew not what the danger was.
And the Platæans that were left in the city came forth withal, and
assaulted the wall of the Peloponnesians on the opposite part to that
where their men went over; so that they were all in a tumult in their
several places, and not any of them that watched durst stir to the aid
of the rest, nor were able to conjecture what had happened. But those
three hundred[9] that were appointed to assist the watch upon all
occasions of need, went without the wall, and made towards the place
of the clamour. They also held up the fires by which they used to make
known the approach of enemies, towards Thebes. But then the Platæans
likewise held out many other fires from the wall of the city, which for
that purpose they had before prepared, to confound the meaning of the
enemy’s signal–fires, and that the Thebans, apprehending the matter
otherwise than it was, might forbear to send help till their men were
over, and had recovered some place of safety.
“In the mean time those Platæans, which having scaled the wall first
and slain the watch, were now masters of both the towers, not only
guarded the passages by standing themselves in the entries, but also
applying ladders from the wall to the towers, and conveying many men
to the top, kept the enemies off with shot both from above and below.
In the mean space the greatest number of them having reared to the
wall many ladders at once, and beaten down the battlements, passed
quite over between the towers, and ever as any of them got to the
other side, they stood still upon the brink of the ditch, and with
arrows and darts kept off those that came along the wall to hinder the
passage of their companions. And when the rest were over, then last of
all, and with much ado, came they also which were in the two towers
down to the ditch. And by this time the three hundred, that were to
assist the watch, came and set upon them, and had lights with them; by
which means the Platæans that were on the further brink of the ditch
discerned them the better from out of the dark, and aimed their arrows
and darts at their most disarmed parts; for, standing in the dark, the
light of the enemy made the Platæans the less discernible: insomuch as
the last of them passed the ditch in time, though with difficulty and
force; for the water in it was frozen over, though not so hard as to
bear, but watery, and such as when the wind is at east rather than at
north; and the snow which fell that night, together with so great a
wind as there was, had very much increased the water, which they waded
through, with scarce their heads above. But yet the greatness of the
storm was the principal means of their escape.
“From the ditch the Platæans in troop took the way towards Thebes,
leaving on the right hand the shrine of the hero Androcrates, both
for that they supposed it would be least suspected that they had
taken the road leading to their enemies; and also because they saw
the Peloponnesians with their lights pursue that way, which, by Mount
Cithæron and the Oakheads, led to Athens; and for six or seven furlongs
the Platæans followed the road to Thebes; then turning off they took
that towards the mountain leading to Erythræ and Hysiæ, and, having
gotten the hills, escaped through to Athens, being two hundred and
twelve persons out of a greater number: for some of them returned
into the city before the rest went over, and one of their archers was
taken upon the ditch without. And so the Peloponnesians gave over the
pursuit, and returned to their places. But the Platæans that were
within the city knowing nothing of the event, and those that turned
back having told them that not a man escaped, as soon as it was day
sent a herald to entreat a truce for the taking up of their dead
bodies; but when they knew the truth, they gave it over. And thus these
men of Platæa passed through the fortification of their enemies, and
were saved.”[10]
A bolder and more fortunate stroke for life and liberty has never
been described. How deep must have been the mortification of those
whose courage failed at the decisive moment, upon learning the
brilliant success of their comrades’ attempt! Dearly did they pay for
disgracing their brave resistance by a single moment of timidity.
Forced at last by famine to yield up the town, which the besiegers
could at any time have taken by assault, but that they had an ulterior
object in wishing to obtain it by surrender, the only terms they
could obtain were, that they should surrender themselves and their
city to the justice of Sparta, so that none but the guilty should be
punished. Commissioners were sent out to try them. The only question
asked was this: Had they done any service to the Lacedæmonians or
their allies in the present war? The Platæans requested that instead
of merely answering this question they might reply at length; and
having obtained it, commissioned two persons to plead their cause.
They set forth the peculiarly hard situation in which this mode of
trial, if such it could be called, placed them; which, setting aside
the justice of their cause, required them to pronounce their own
certain condemnation. They reminded the hearers of their services in
the Persian war, of the privileges and immunities conferred on them
by Pausanias and the Greeks, and the respect due to their territory,
as the repository of the bones of those who fell in the great battle
which for ever relieved Greece from the fear of Persia. They urged,
that when they had sought alliance with Sparta, and protection against
Thebes, the Spartans themselves had rejected their petition, and
referred them to Athens; they suggested skilfully the high reputation
of the Spartans for probity, and dwelt on the disgrace which they
would incur, if, in a cause of such importance, they should commit
injustice. But they pleaded in vain: the character which they ascribed
to the Spartans, if ever deserved, was now deserved no longer, and
their fate was predetermined. The question, Had they done any good to
the Lacedæmonians? was repeated to them one by one; and as it could not
be answered in the affirmative, they were led off to execution to the
number of 200 Platæans and twenty–five Athenians. Nor was this a single
instance of barbarity, for it was the practice of the Spartans to put
their prisoners to death, even the crews of such merchant ships as they
captured; an example too readily followed by their antagonists. One,
and but one, such action may be cited in modern times, the massacre of
the Turkish prisoners at Jaffa, the most hateful, and save one perhaps
the most hated, of the remorseless actions of Napoleon. Yet for this
there is some shadow of excuse, however insufficient to justify the
deed to modern morals, in the broken parole of those who were put to
death. To the Greeks such excuse would have been ample; nay, none such
was required. Humanity has made no small progress, even in the midst
of warfare. The town of Platæa was levelled with the ground by the
Thebans.[11]
Similar was the fate, similar, but even more obstinate and remarkable
was the resistance, of Numantia, the last stronghold of those gallant
and generous Celtiberians, who, after the infamous murder of Viriatus,
upheld the liberties of Spain against Rome. During five successive
years, six Roman officers met with defeats, more or less signal, under
its walls, and peace, twice offered and concluded by the unsuccessful
generals to retrieve their safety, was as often disowned and violated
by the unblushing perfidy of the senate. The circumstances of one of
these treaties are so creditable to the _barbarian_ Spaniards, as they
were called by the Romans, that we will go somewhat out of the way to
relate them.
The highest estimate of the Numantine force falls short of 10,000
men. C. Hostilius Mancinus, consul A. U. 615 (B.C. 139), succeeding
to the command of 30,000 men employed in besieging them, found his
army so dispirited by a long train of reverses, that he judged it
best to retire to some distance from the town. He intended to effect
this secretly by a night march, but the besieged, getting notice of
his design, fell upon the Roman rear, killed 10,000, it is said, and
surrounded the rest in such a manner that escape was hopeless. Anxious
only for peace and independence, they readily accepted the terms
offered by Mancinus as a ransom for his army. What these were does
not appear, but they were sworn to by the consul and chief officers.
Mancinus, on the first rumour of his defeat, was recalled to Rome, and
deputies from Numantia accompanied him, to obtain the ratification of
the treaty. But the haughty senate, as once before in the celebrated
surrender at the Caudine Forks, refused to admit terms humiliating
to the dignity of the republic, though not to profit by the release
of their countrymen. The war was continued; but to satisfy their
notions of equity Mancinus was given up to the Numantines, a voluntary
testimony, to do him justice, to his own good faith in the transaction.
Returning to Spain with his successor, Furius, he was led naked to the
waist, his hands tied behind him, to the gates of Numantia. But the
Numantines refused to take vengeance on an innocent man; saying, that
the breach of the public faith could not be expiated by the death of
one person. Let the senate abide by the treaty, or deliver up those who
have escaped under the shelter of it.
At first perfidy did not seem to prosper. Furius and his successor
Calpurnius Piso made no more progress than their predecessors, and
so high grew the reputation of the besieged for valour, that no one,
Florus says, ever expected to see the back of a Numantine. At last,
A. U. 619, the Romans, weary of the war, and anxious above all things
to bring it to an end, re–elected to the office of consul Scipio
Æmilianus, celebrated as the final conqueror and destroyer of Carthage,
and expressly assigned Spain to him as his province, instead of
suffering the two consuls to draw lots for the choice of provinces, as
was the usual course. Scipio’s first care was to restore discipline
in his army, which he found corrupted by luxury. With this view he
expelled all the idle and profligate followers of the camp; practised
his troops in all military exercises, inured them to exposure and
fatigue, and when he thought the ancient tone of Roman discipline was
restored, led them, not against the formidable Numantines, but against
a neighbouring people. Obtaining a trifling advantage over a party of
the former who had attacked his foragers, he refused to prosecute it,
thinking it enough that the reputed invincibility of the Numantines
was disproved. On this occasion, says Plutarch, the Numantines being
reproached on their return to the city, for retiring before an enemy
whom they had so often beaten, replied, “The Romans might indeed be the
same sheep, but they had gotten a new shepherd.”
In the ensuing winter, his army being increased to 60,000 men, Scipio
determined to invest the town. Regardless of the disproportion of
force, the besieged often offered battle, which he refused, preferring
the slow work of famine to encountering the desperation of veteran
and approved soldiers. With this view he proceeded to draw lines of
circumvallation round the town; and it is said by Appian, that he
was the first general who ever took that method of reducing a place,
the garrison of which did not decline a battle in the open field.
The town was about three miles in compass, and lay on the slope of a
hill, at the foot of which ran the river Durius, now called the Douro.
Around it Scipio traced a double ditch, six miles in circuit, with a
rampart eight feet thick and ten feet high, not including a parapet
strengthened by towers at intervals of 125 feet. The river, where it
intersected the works, was effectually blocked up by chains and booms.
The besieged often endeavoured to check the progress of the Romans, but
the superiority of numbers, aided by restored discipline, was too much
for them.
The blockade had lasted six months, and the Numantines were hard
pressed by famine, before they condescended to inquire whether, if
they surrendered, they would meet with honourable treatment. An
unconditional surrender was required. Urged even to desperation,
they still refused to consign themselves to slavery or mutilation,
for the latter often was the fate of those whose strength and valour
the Romans had found reason to respect. Rather than submit to such a
fate, they consumed their arms and effects, and houses, in one general
conflagration, and dying by the sword, or poison, or fire, left the
victor nothing of Numantia to adorn his triumph but the name.[12]
Such was the unworthy fate of a city which had spared more Roman
soldiers than itself could muster armed men. “Most brave,” says the
historian, “and, in my opinion, most happy in its very misfortunes!
It asserted faithfully the cause of its allies; alone it resisted,
for how long a time, a nation armed with the strength of the whole
world.”[13] It is an easy thing to write rhetorical flourishes, and
very often mischievous as well as easy. Had Florus ever undergone one
tithe of the sufferings inflicted on the miserable Numantines, we might
possibly not have heard of their supreme felicity. It might have done
him some good by quickening his moral sense, and might have prevented
his beginning the next chapter with the assertion, that “hitherto the
Roman people was excellent, pious, holy.” Verily, such history as this
is a profitable study!
[Illustration: Battering–ram, combined with tower, from Pompeii, vol.
i. p. 78.]
In reading of such sieges as these, one of the first things which
strikes a reader not familiar with ancient warfare, is the extreme
rudeness of the methods employed, and the vast expense of time and
labour; yet, compared with earlier times, even the siege of Platæa is
of no extraordinary duration. Not to go back to the ten–year sieges of
Troy and Eira, the Messenians in Ithome held out against the Spartans
during nine years; and, in the Peloponnesian war itself, Potidæa
resisted for a still longer period than Platæa: such was the patience
of a besieging army in waiting for the slow operation of hunger, or for
some fortunate chance which, as at Eira, might give possession of the
town at an unguarded moment. Before the battering–ram was invented,
force could avail little against solid walls; and men soon found out,
with Wamba, in Ivanhoe, that their hands were little fitted to make
mammocks of stone and mortar. A well–conducted escalade might succeed;
a skilful stratagem might deceive the vigilance of the garrison; an
ingenious general might devise some method of attack which should
render walls useless, as in the attempt to burn out the Platæans, and
might derive some advantage from natural facilities, or even from
natural obstacles, so as to convert what the besieged most trusted in
into the means of their destruction; but to overthrow or pass the walls
by violence was commonly beyond his power. But the introduction of the
ram worked a material change in the relative strength of the besiegers
and besieged, for few walls could be found strong enough to bear the
repeated application of its powerful shocks. Next in importance to the
ram were those huge moving towers which overtopped walls, and were
provided with drawbridges, by means of which, the battlements being
previously cleared of their defenders by missile weapons from above, a
body of troops might at once be thrown upon them.
[Illustration: Moveable towers, from Pompeii, vol. i. p. 80.]
No material alteration in the methods of attack took place till the
discovery of gunpowder gave force enough to projectiles to batter down
the strongest walls, without exposing men and machinery to the hazard
of close approach. The only improvements which did take place consisted
in supplying means by which the assailants might approach with less
danger to the foot of the walls, and there apply the powerful ram, or,
in some instances, resort to mining.
In illustration of these remarks we may notice, very shortly, two
of the most remarkable sieges in ancient history, those of Tyre and
Syracuse, both resolutely sustained, both finally successful, both
carried on by rich and powerful nations who commanded every thing
that the best skill of the engineer, or the labour of numbers, could
effect. The first was undertaken by Alexander soon after the battle
of Issus, B.C. 333. From past ages the Phœnicians had been celebrated
among Asiatics for their maritime skill, and Tyre was the most powerful
of the Phœnician cities. Trusting in their naval strength to obviate
blockade and famine, and in the height of their walls and strength
of their situation to repel violence, the Tyrians refused admission
to Alexander, remaining faithful to their engagements with Persia.
Too weak at sea to assault the walls from his fleet, Alexander had no
resource but to carry out a mole to the island. Near the walls there
were three fathoms of water, which shoaled gradually to the shore. The
mole was built of stone, heaped up, we may suppose, of rough uncemented
blocks, like the Plymouth breakwater, and strengthened with piles; and
the top was constructed entirely, or in part, of wood. At first it
proceeded with despatch, but more slowly and more difficultly as it
approached the walls, from which the besieged annoyed the workmen with
missiles, and, at the same time, constantly harassed them from the sea.
To protect themselves from these attacks the Macedonians built on the
verge of the mole two high towers, armed with engines, and covered with
raw hides as defence against darts armed with fire. These the Tyrians
destroyed by a peculiarly constructed fire–ship. Having filled a large
transport with dry twigs and combustible matter, they fixed two masts
in the prow, heaped faggots high around them, and added pitch, sulphur,
and every thing that was proper to feed the flames. To each mast they
fastened two yard–arms, from the ends of which two cauldrons were
suspended, filled with combustibles. The ballast they moved entirely to
the stern, to raise her head as high out of the water as possible. Thus
prepared, they took advantage of a favourable wind to run her up on
the mole, and set fire to her, the crew escaping by swimming; and both
mole and towers were speedily involved in the conflagration. Meanwhile
the Tyrians, from ships and boats, assisted in the ruin, destroyed the
piles, and burnt those engines which would otherwise have escaped the
flames. The work therefore had to be recommenced, and it was rebuilt on
a larger scale.[14]
While this labour was proceeding, Alexander’s fleet was reinforced in
consequence of the submission of the Cypriots and Sidonians, to an
extent which enabled him to command the sea, and compelled the Tyrians
to block up the mouths of their harbours. Numerous mechanics were
employed in constructing military engines; some of which were placed
on board the largest ships of the fleet, and the rest were mounted
on the mole. The Tyrians, still to have the advantage of height,
built wooden towers upon their walls facing the mole. This would seem
scarcely necessary if we credit Arrian’s assertion, that the city
wall in that part was 150 feet high;[15] but it gives us a scale for
measuring the altitude of Alexander’s towers, which we may assume,
from this precaution, to have been as great or greater. On the side to
the sea they cast fiery darts into the attacking ships, and showers of
stones, which not only did much harm in their fall, but raised a bank
which made it impossible to get close up to the walls. The Macedonians
therefore were obliged to clear away these impediments; a work in
itself of difficulty and labour, increased by the resolution of the
Tyrians, who openly, by sending armed ships, and secretly, by means of
divers, cut adrift from their moorings the vessels employed on this
service. The Macedonians frustrated this method of defence by using
chains instead of cables for mooring, and succeeded at last in clearing
away the bank, and getting access to the wall. On the north side,
and that next the mole, it resisted their efforts; but a breach was
effected on the south side by battering from the ships, and an assault
was made, but without success. On the third day afterwards, the breach
being enlarged, a second assault was made under Alexander in person,
and the town was carried. Eight thousand Tyrians were slain, and thirty
thousand persons, natives and strangers, are said to have been sold for
slaves.
The most remarkable feature of this siege is the battering in breach
from the shipping, which would seem a most unstable base for the
cumbrous and weighty engines which must have been used. It may be
wished that Arrian had been more explicit on this subject, but he has
given no explanation of the means employed. Quintus Curtius relates
far greater wonders, and in the same proportion is less worthy of
belief than the plain and unassuming statement of Arrian, which we have
followed.
The siege of Syracuse, undertaken by the Romans under command of
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, B.C. 213, is rendered most remarkable by
the interposition of the celebrated geometrician Archimedes. Many
extraordinary stories are told of the wonderful things done by him,
which, if they rested only on the authority of Plutarch, and other
compilers of stories, it would be the natural and simple course to
reject; but some of the most singular are affirmed by Polybius, almost
a contemporary, well skilled in war, and of undoubted credit for
honesty and discernment; and one point, of which Polybius makes no
mention, has been ascertained to be practicable by modern experiment.
It is to be regretted that but a fragment of his account remains.
Syracuse was divided into five districts, the little island of Ortygia,
Acradina, Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ. Marcellus directed his attack
against Acradina, which adjoined the sea, with fifty quinqueremes, or
vessels with five banks of oars, well filled with soldiers armed with
all kinds of missile weapons to clear the walls. He had also eight
ships fitted out in a peculiar way with machines called _sambucæ_,
from some fancied resemblance to a harp. They where thus prepared: two
ships were lashed together, the oars being taken from the two adjoining
sides, so as to form, as it were, one large double–keeled vessel,
affording a broad and stable base. A ladder was then made, four feet
broad, of the necessary height, protected at the sides and above with
gratings and hides, so as to form a sort of covered way to the very
summit of the walls. It was then so placed, the foot at the stern,
the head projecting beyond the prow, that it could be raised by ropes
run through pulleys at the mast–heads. At the top was a platform large
enough to contain four men, with high sides which turned on hinges, and
which being let down served as bridges to connect the ladder with the
walls of the besieged town.
At the request of Hiero, king of Syracuse, Archimedes had in past
years constructed a great number of machines for casting stones and
darts; with which the walls were so well supplied, that the Romans were
defeated in every attempt to approach: Marcellus ran his ships by night
beneath the walls, hoping to be within the range of these destructive
engines. Here, however, he was anticipated, for Archimedes had hollowed
chambers in the walls themselves, with narrow openings, like the
embrasures of a Gothic castle, from which archery, and the smaller
sorts of missile engines, were directed against the Roman ships with
destructive effect. Against the sambucæ he had contrived machines, from
which long beams or yards projected, when in use, far beyond the walls.
These were heavily weighted with stone or metal to the extent of not
less than ten talents, or 1250 pounds. A rapid circular motion being
then given to the beam by machinery within the walls, this weighted
lever was dashed against the ladder with such force as generally to
break it, while the ship itself was exposed to considerable danger.
This story not being good enough for Plutarch, he has told us, that
when the sambuca was a good way off the walls, a stone ten talents
weight was thrown into it, and then a second, and third, which
destroyed the vessel; and in consequence considerable ridicule has
been thrown on the tale. As told by Polybius it seems little open to
objection. Weights, not of half a ton, but several tons, are constantly
to be seen on our wharfs suspended on cranes, at a considerable
distance from a centre of motion. Add to one of these the machinery
requisite to give a rapid circular motion to the projecting arm thus
laden, and we have the engine of Archimedes, as described by Polybius.
The geometrician had also fitted out powerful cranes, with hooks and
chains, by which he could lift a ship almost out of the water. When it
was raised to the greatest practicable height, the chain was slipped,
and the vessel usually was either upset by the fall, or plunged so deep
as to fill with water. Marcellus is reported to have observed (it must
have been a forced joke), that Archimedes used his ships for cups to
draw water in. Finally he was obliged to abandon the attack by sea.
Appius Claudius, who conducted the siege by land, fared no better: and
it was resolved at last to give up all hopes of succeeding by force,
and trust to the slow operation of blockade. “Thus,” says Polybius,
“one man, and one art rightly prepared,[16] is for some matters a
mighty and a wonderful thing; for the Romans, having such power by land
and sea, take away but one old man of Syracuse, might have expected
immediately to capture the city; but while Archimedes was there, they
dared not even to attack it in that manner against which he was capable
of defending it.”
It is also said that Archimedes set the Roman ships on fire by means of
burning mirrors, composed of a combination of plane mirrors, adjusted
so as to reflect all the incident rays of light to the same point. The
possibility of this has several times been the subject of inquiry to
modern philosophers. Kircher took so much interest in the subject, that
he went to Syracuse expressly to inquire into the probable position of
Marcellus’s fleet, and he arrived at the conclusion, that it might have
been within thirty yards of the walls. Buffon’s experiments, made as
well as those of Archimedes with a combination of plane mirrors, are
conclusive as to the facility of setting tarred fir plank on fire at a
distance of one hundred and fifty feet, and the possibility of doing
it at considerably greater distances. Similar planks, and even more
combustible materials, were precisely what Archimedes had to deal with.
He is said to have operated in this way at the distance of a bow–shot,
in which there may very probably be exaggeration.
The sequel of the siege contains no matter of interest. Syracuse was
taken by surprise through the negligence of the guard, and Archimedes
is said to have been slain by a soldier, as he was deeply intent on the
solution of a problem.
Lines of circumvallation continued long to be the principal means
employed by the Romans in the reduction of strong places. Even the
inventive genius of Cæsar does not appear to have devised the means of
dispensing with this tedious and most laborious process. In his Gallic
wars he had frequent recourse to it, though the Gallic fortifications,
it might be thought, could not be of the most formidable description;
and the siege of Alesia furnishes one of the most remarkable instances
of it on record. The town stood on an eminence, surrounded on three
sides by hills of equal height, at a moderate distance: in front
extended a plain, three miles in length. Round the foot of this
eminence he dug a trench, twenty feet in width; and again, at an
interval of 400 feet, two more, of which the inner one was filled with
water: behind them he built a rampart twelve feet high, crowned with
battlements, and strengthened with towers at intervals of eighty feet;
and, more effectually to confine the besieged, and enable a smaller
force to guard the works, the space between them and the inner ditch
was filled with three distinct rows of obstacles. The first consisted
of a sort of abattis, made with large branches of trees, with the
ends squared and sharpened, set firmly in the earth (_cippi_). The
next were called lilies (_lilia_), from their resemblance to the
calix of that flower, with its upright pistil: these were circular
cup–shaped cavities, three feet deep, with a sharpened stake in the
centre, projecting about four inches above ground, and covered over
with brushwood to deceive assailants. Still nearer to the town iron
hooks (_stimuli_, like the Scottish _calthrop_, often used with effect
against the English cavalry) were scattered, to lacerate the feet of
the advancing enemy. The whole circuit of these works was fourteen
miles, and a similar series protected the troops from attack from
without.[17]
To come down to a period more interesting to modern readers, we find,
in the middle ages, the same principles of operation followed, but in a
ruder way, since neither men, nor money, nor science were so abundant
among the nations who established kingdoms on the ruins of the western
empire, as among the Romans; and, moreover, the turbulent independence
of a feudal army, whose term of service was usually limited to a
certain time, was unfitted for the severe labour, or the patient and
continued watching, which the Roman legionaries cheerfully underwent.
Still such skill as our ancestors of the middle ages had was borrowed
from the Romans; they employed the same species of machines, towers,
rams, and moveable galleries called cats, and the same or similar
projectile engines, mentioned under the same names of catapultæ,
onagri, scorpiones, &c., in the Latin authors of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries; and mangonels, trebuchets, war–wolfs, &c. in the
vernacular tongue. The first defence of a castle or city was usually
a strong wooden palisade called the barriers; and at these many of
the most obstinate contests and remarkable feats of arms recorded by
Froissart and other chroniclers of the times took place. These being
carried, the next step was to level the ground, drain or fill up the
ditch, and prepare for bringing up the battering–rams or towers, or
scaling–ladders, if it were thought fit to attempt an escalade. In the
first crusade the headlong valour of the Christian knights endeavoured
in vain to overleap the walls or force the gates of Jerusalem: time
was required to construct two moving towers, and on the difficulty
of procuring wood the fiction of the enchanted forest of Armida, in
Tasso’s poem, is founded. The leader of the Genoese, one of the great
maritime states of Italy, was the architect.
This man begunne with wondrous art to make
Not rammes, not mighty brakes, not slings alone,
Wherewith the firm and solid walls to shake,
To cast a dart, or throw a shaft or stone;
But, framed of pines and firres, did undertake
To build a forteresse huge, to which was none
Yet ever like, whereof he clothed the sides
Against the balles of fire with raw bulls’ hides.
In mortisses and sockets framed just
The beames, the studdes, and punchions joyned he fast;
To beat the cities wall, beneath forth burst
A ram with horned front; about her wast
A bridge the engine from her side out thrust,
Which on the wall, when need required, she cast;
And on her top a turret small up stood,
Strong, surely armed, and builded of like wood.
Set on a hundred wheels, the rolling masse
On the smooth lands went nimbly up and downe,
Though full of armes, and armed men it was,
Yet with small pains it ran as it had flowne;
Wondered the camp so quick to see it passe,
They praised the workmen, and their skill unknowne;
And on that day two towres they builded more,
Like that which sweet Clorinda burnt before.[18]
* * * * *
The archers shotte their arrowes sharpe and keene,
Dipt in the bitter juyce of poyson strong;
The shady face of heaven was scantly seen,
Hid with the cloud of shafts and quarries long;
Yet weapons sharp with greater fury beene
Cast from the towres the Pagan troops among;
For thence flew stones, and clifts of marble rocks,
Trees shod with iron, timber, logs, and blocks.
A thunderbolt seemed every stone; it brake
His limmes and armour so on whom it light,
That life and soule it did not only take,
But all his face and shape disfigured quight:
The lances staid not in the wounds they make,
But through the gored body tooke their flight
From side to side; through flesh, through skin and rinde
They flew, and flying left sadde death behinde.
But yet not all this force and fury drove
The Pagan people to forsake the walle,
But to revenge these deadly blowes they strove
With darts that flie, with stones and trees that fall;
For need so cowards oft courageous prove,
For liberty they fight, for life, for all,
And oft with arrows, shafts, and stones that flie,
Give bitter answer to a sharp replie.
This while the fierce assailants never cease,
But sternly still maintaine a threefold charge,
And ’gainst the cloud of shafts draw nigh at ease,
Under a pentise made of many a targe;
The armed towres close to the bulwarks prease,
And strive to grapple with the battled marge,
And launch their bridges out; mean while below
With iron fronts, the rammes the walls down throwe.
(68–71.)
Rinaldo, according to the romancer, raises a ladder, and scales the
walls single–handed; but Godfrey of Bouillon, who is present in one of
the towers, finds greater obstacles:—
For there not man with man, nor knight with knight
Contend, but engines there with engines fight.
For in that place the Paynims reared a post
Which late had served some gallant ship for mast,
And over it another beam they crost,
Pointed with iron sharpe, to it made fast
With ropes, which as men would the dormant tost
Now in, now out, now backe, now forward cast;
In his swift pullies oft the men withdrew
The tree, and oft the riding balke forth threw.
The mighty beame redoubled oft his blowes,
And with such force the engine smote and hit,
That her broad side the towre wide open throwes,
Her joynts were broke, her rafters cleft and split;
But yet, ‘gainst every hap whence mischief grows
Prepared, the piece (’gainst such extremes made fit),
Lanched forth two sithes, sharpe, cutting, long, and broade,
And cut the ropes, whereon the engine roade.
As an old rocke, which age, or stormy winde
Teares from some craggy hill, or mountaine steepe,
Doth breake, doth bruise, and into dust doth grinde
Woods, houses, hamlets, herds, and folds of sheep;
So fell the beame, and down with it all kinde
Of arms, of weapons, and of men did sweep,
Wherewith the towers once or twice did shake,
Trembled the walls, the hills and mountains quake.
(80, 81, 82.)
The Turks attempt to burn the tower with wildfire, but are prevented by
a providential tempest, and it approaches so close that the besiegers
throw their drawbridge on the walls. The courage of Godfrey was
animated by a divine vision of all those princes who had been slain in
the sacred war, bearing arms in behalf of the crusaders.
And on the bridge he stept, but there was staid
By Soliman, who entrance all denied;
That narrow tree to virtue great was made
The field, as in few blowes right soon was tried.
Here will I give my life for Sion’s aid,
Here will I end my days, the Soldan cried;
Behind me cut, or breake this bridge, that I
May kill a thousand Christians first, then die.
But thither fierce Rinaldo threatening went,
And at his sight fled all the Soldan’s traine;
What shall I do? if here my life be spent,
I spend and spill (quoth he) my blood in vaine;
With that his steps from Godfrey back he bent,
And to him let the passage free remaine,
Who threatening followed as the Soldan fled,
And on the walls the purple crown dispred:
About his head he tost, he turned, he cast
That glorious ensign with a thousand twines;
Thereon the wind breathes with his sweetest blast—
Thereon with golden rays glad Phebus shines:
Earth laughs for joy, the streames forbeare their hast,
Floods clap their hands, on mountains dance the pines;
And Sion’s towres and sacred temples smile
For their deliv’rance from that bondage vile.
(xviii. 98–100.)
We originally meant only to introduce Tasso’s description of the
towers, and have been led on to protract the quotation to far greater
length, from finding not only so lively, but there is all reason to
believe so accurate, a description, making allowance for a little
poetical exaggeration, of the mode of combat then in use. The poet
has at least the merit of being true to the facts related by the
historians. Two towers were constructed, one of which, intrusted to
the charge of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, was burnt by the besieged;
the other, directed by Godfrey in person, was brought safely up to
the walls. Large beams were applied to prevent its close approach, as
described by the poet, and these being cut away, were taken possession
of, and proved very serviceable to the crusaders. The walls were
cleared, not only by archery, but by a much less warlike and romantic
device. The wind blowing into the town, the assailants set on fire a
mattress stuffed with silk (_culcitram bombyce plenam_), and bags of
straw, so that “they who were appointed to defend the wall, unable to
open eyes or mouth, besotted and bewildered with the eddies of the
smoky darkness, deserted their post. Which being known, the general
with all haste commanded the beams which they had captured from the
enemy to be brought up, and one end resting on the machine, the other
on the wall, he ordered the moveable side of the tower to be let down;
which being supported on them, served in the place of a bridge of
suitable strength.”[19] This, it must be confessed, is a less romantic
way of gaining entrance than fighting hand to hand with Solyman: but
it is true, for the valour and personal prowess of Godfrey of Bouillon
were unsurpassed, and there is no reason to suspect that flattering
historians have perverted the fact, that Godfrey, noblest of the
crossed chiefs in character as in station, was the third man to enter
that holy city, for the delivery of which he longed so ardently, and
had sacrificed so much. Two brothers named Letold and Engelbert,
otherwise unknown to fame, were the first who won their way to these
contested walls.
For reasons above given the strong fortresses of feudal pride were
more frequently carried by a sudden and vigorous attack, than by the
tedious and expensive process of regular siege. Of such attacks some
remarkable instances occur in the wars between England and Scotland,
which at some future period we may perhaps notice; at present it is
more to our purpose to quote from the graphic pages of Froissart this
short passage, which is so completely ancient in character that change
the names and it might pass for the act of a Roman army:—
“The Englysshemen, that had lyen long before the Ryoll[20] more than
nyne weekes, had made in the mean space two belfroys of grete tymbre,
with four stages, every belfroy upon foure grete whelys, and the sydes
toward the towne were covered with cure boly,[21] to defend them fro
fyre and fro shotte; and into every stage there were poynted a C
archers: by strength of men these two belfroys were brought to the
walles of the towne, for they had so filled the dykes, that they might
well be brought just to the walles; the archers in these stages shotte
so holly togyder, that none durst apere at their defence, without they
were well pavysshed,[22] and between these two belfroys there were a
CC men with pic–axes to mine the walles, and so they brake through the
walles. * * * When sir Agous de Ban, who was captain within, knewe that
the people of the towne wolde yelde up, he went into the castell with
his companye of soudyers, and whyle they of the towne were entretyng he
conveyed out of the towne gret quantyte of wyne and other provisyon,
and then closed the castell gates, and sayd how he wolde not yeld up so
sone. Then the erle (of Derby) entred into the towne and layde siege
round about the castell as nere as he mighte, and rered up all his
engynes, the which caste nyght and day agaynst the walles, but they
dyd lytell hurt, the walles were so strong of harde stone; it was sayd
that of olde tyme it had been wrought by the handes of the Sarasyns,
who made their warkes so strongly that ther is none such now a dayes.
When the erle sawe that he colde do no good with his engynes, he caused
theym to cease; then he called to hym his myners, to thyntent that
they shuld make a myne under alle the walles, the whiche was nat sone
made.”[23]
In the time of Froissart the invention of gunpowder had already begun
to work a change in the art of war: still, then and for some time
afterwards, the imperfection of the artillery in use rendered them
of little real service.[24] Usually of immense and unwieldy size and
weight, the difficulty of transporting them from place to place was
extreme, and they could not be fired more than three or four times in
the day, at great expense and with uncertain execution. Even so late
as the siege of Magdeburg, in 1631, it is said that 1550 cannon shots
where fired against one wall with but little effect. But as the art
of gunnery advanced, the battering train was found to be an overmatch
for the strongest fortresses that had yet been constructed, and a new
system of fortification came gradually into use. Low bastions and
curtains took place of the lofty towers and walls of former castles;
and still the advantage is so entirely transferred from the besieged
to the besiegers, that the termination of a siege pursued according
to the rules of art is reduced almost to certainty as to the time
and method of its issue. This has diminished the interest of modern
sieges, by making ultimate capture almost a certainty, and rendering
it the interest of the garrison rather to make terms while they have
something to give up, than to hold out to those extremes of difficulty
and distress, of which ancient history abounds in striking examples.
It has also rendered both the attack and defence matters more of
combination and science, and less of individual gallantry. There is,
however, one war in the transition stage, as it were, from ancient to
modern tactics, distinguished especially by the number and length of
its sieges, and by the constancy and desperate valour shown by the
beleaguered party in every instance. Even were we indifferent to the
parties, the narrations would in themselves be deeply interesting,
but the nobleness of their cause renders the sufferings of the brave
defenders doubly affecting—their triumphs doubly glorious. The reader
will readily conclude that we refer to the desperate struggle of
the Netherlands for civil and religious liberty against the mighty
despotism of Spain. Three sieges which occurred in this war are
especially worthy of the reader’s attention, those of Leyden, Haarlem,
and Ostend. That of Leyden has been already noticed in the first
volume; and after some hesitation we have selected the siege of Ostend
for relation here, as being more full of incident, not of interest,
than that of Haarlem. We give it from the contemporary historian,
Bentivoglio:—
“We will now come to the siege of Ostend, which, being one of the most
memorable of this our age, doth certainly challenge, that, as much
brevity and diligence as may be being joyned together, it be duly
considered and represented with all clearness. It was above three years
before it was brought to an end; and it was almost as uncertain at the
last day as at the first to which side the victory did incline. The
besieged never wanted fresh succours by sea, nor did the besiegers
at any time cease advancing by land. Infinite were the batteries,
the assaults infinite; so many were the mines, and so obstinate the
countermines, as it may be almost affirmed as much work was done under
ground as above ground. New names were to be found for new engines.
There was a perpetual dispute between the sea and land: the works on
the latter could not operate so much as the mines made by the former
did destroy. Great store of blood ran every where, and men were readier
to lose it than to preserve it, till such time as the besieged wanting
ground, and rather what to defend than defence, they were at last
forced to forego that little spot of ground which was left them, and to
yield.
“Ostend stands upon the sea–shore, and in the midst of a marish ground,
and of divers channels which come from the continent; but it is chiefly
environed almost on all sides by two of the greatest of them,[25] by
which the sea enters into the land, and grows so high when it is full
sea, as you would rather think the town were buried than situated in
the sea. In former times it was an open place, and served rather for
a habitation for shepheards than for soldiers. But the importancy of
the seat being afterwards considered, the houses were inclosed with
a platform instead of a wall, and from time to time the line was so
flank round about it, as it proved to be one of the strongest towns
of all the province of Flanders. It is divided into two parts, which
are called the old town and the new. The former, which is the lesser,
stands towards the sea; the latter and greater lies towards the land.
The old town is fenced from the fury of the sea by great piles of wood
driven into the ground, and joined together for the defence of that
part, and there the waves sufficiently supply the part of a ditch.
The channels may be said to do the like on the sides; and, especially
at full sea, of channels they become havens, being then capable of
any kind of vessels, and by them at all times the middle size of
barks enter into the ditches, and from the ditches in diverse parts
into the town itself; to boot, with the chief wellflanked line on
the outside of the ditch, towards the land side is a strada coperta
raised, which is so well furnished with new flanks, and with a new
ditch, as this outward fortification doth hardly give way to any of
the inward ones. The town is but of a small compass, and is ennobled
rather by its situation and fortifications than by any splendour either
of inhabitants or houses. The United Provinces caused it to be very
carefully kept at this time, wherefore it was largely provided of
men, artillery, ammunition, and of whatsoever else was necessary for
the defence thereof. In this condition was the town when the Archduke
resolved to sit down before it.”
On the east of the town there was a detached fort called St. Alberto,
on the west another called Bredene, both which had been abandoned
by the garrison. These were occupied by the besieging army, which
proceeded to surround Ostend on the landward with a chain of works, not
without sharp fighting, for the governor, Sir Francis Vere, had raised
redoubts in front of his fortifications, and hotly contested every inch
of ground. It seemed also necessary to cut off the communication with
the sea, and with this view a bank was run out on the eastern side
from St. Alberto to prevent barks from entering by the channel on that
quarter. But it was also expedient to block up the channel on the side
of Bredene, and in doing this greater difficulties were to be overcome.