38.7
When
Perseus heard that the Aetolians were approaching, he raised the siege of the
city which he was attacking and, after devastating their fields, left
Amphilochia and returned to Macedonia. The Aetolians, too, were called
away by the ravages which were being committed on their sea-board.
Pleuratus, king of the Illyrians, had sailed into the Gulf of Corinth with sixty
ships, reinforced by the Aetolian vessels from Patrae, and was devastating
the maritime districts of Aetolia. A force of 1000 Aetolians was despatched
against him and by taking direct roads they were able to meet him at
whatever point his fleet had, in its cruising in and out of the indented coast,
tried to effect a landing. At Ambracia the Romans had battered down the
walls in several places and partially laid bare the city, but they could not
force their way into it. As fast as the wall was destroyed a new one was
raised in its place and the citizens stood in arms on the fallen masonry to bar
all approach. Finding that he was making very little progress by direct
assault, the consul decided to construct a secret passage underground after
first covering the place whence it started with vineae. Working day and night
they succeeded for a considerable time in escaping the observation of the
enemy, not only whilst they were digging but also whilst carrying away the
earth. Suddenly the sight of a conspicuous mound of soil gave the townsmen
an indication of what was going on. To avert the danger of the wall being
undermined and a way into the city being thrown open, they began to run a
trench inside the wall in the direction of the place covered with vineae. When
they had excavated as low as the bottom of the secret passage would
probably be, they remained perfectly silent, and by placing their ears against
different places in the side of the trench they caught the sound of the enemy
diggers. As soon as they heard this they broke through straight into the
tunnel. There was no difficulty in doing this, for they quickly found
themselves in an open space where the wall had been underpinned with
timber props by the enemy.1 As the trench and tunnel now opened into one
another the two parties of diggers commenced a fight with their digging
tools. Very soon armed bodies came up on both sides and an underground
battle began in the dark. The besieged closed up the tunnel in one place by
stretching a screen of goats' hair across and improvising barricades, and they
adopted a novel device against the enemy which was small but effective. A
hole was bored through the bottom of a cask in which an iron pipe was
inserted. and an iron cover perforated with several holes was prepared to fit
the other end. The cask was then filled with light feathers, the cover fastened
on, and through the holes some long spears -the so-called "sarissae" -were
inserted to keep off the enemy. The cask was now placed with its head
towards the tunnel and a light was placed amongst the feathers which were
blown into a blaze by a pair of smith's bellows inserted in the pipe. The
tunnel was soon filled with a dense smoke, rendered all the more pungent
from the horrid smell of the burning feathers, and hardly a man could endure
it.
