entrance, he commanded his men to disembark secretly. Then, placing his ships on wheels, he transported them to the neighbouring harbour of Munychia.[1]
When Hirtuleius, lieutenant of Quintus Sertorius, was leading a few cohorts up a long narrow road in Spain between two precipitous mountains, and had learned that a large detachment of the enemy was approaching, he had a ditch dug across between the mountains, fenced it with a wooden rampart, set fire to this, and made his escape, while the enemy were thus cut off from attacking him.[2]
When Gaius Caesar led out his forces against Afranius in the Civil War, and had no means of retreating without danger, he had the first and second lines of battle remain in arms, just as they were drawn up, while the third secretly applied itself to work in the rear, and dug a ditch fifteen feet deep, within the line of which the soldiers under arms withdrew at sunset.[3]
Pericles the Athenian, being driven by the Peloponnesians into a place surrounded on all sides by precipitous cliffs and provided with only two outlets, dug a ditch of great breadth on one side, as if to shut out the enemy; on the other side he began to build a road, as if intending to make a sally by this. The besiegers, not supposing that Pericles' army would make its escape by the ditch which he had constructed, massed to oppose him on the side where the road was. But Pericles, spanning the ditch by bridges which he had made ready, extricated his men without interference.[4]
Lysimachus, one of the heirs to Alexander's power, having determined on one occasion to pitch
- ↑ 404 B.C.
- ↑ 79–75 B.C.
- ↑ 49 B.C. Cf. Caes. B.C. i. 42.
- ↑ 430 B.C. Cf. III. ix. 9. Variations of the same story. Polyaen. v. x. 3 attributes this stratagem to Himilco.
