wars of the Carthaginians, what use Hannibal, Fabius, Scipio, and other generals of both nations made of them.

VI. Their manner of attacking and defending firong places.

The ancients both devised and executed all that could be expected from the nature of the arms known in their days, as alfo from the force and the variety of engines then in ufe, either for attacking or defending fortified places.

1. Their away of attacking places.

The first methed of attacking a place was by blockade. They invested the town with a wall built quite round it, and in which, at proper diftances were made redoubts and places of arms; and between the wall and the town they dug a deep trench, which they ftrongly fenced with pallifadoes, to hinder the befieged from going out, as well as to prevent fuccours or provifions from being brought in. In this manner they waited till famine did what they could not effect by force or art. From hence proceeded the length of the fieges related by the ancients; as that of Troy, which lafted ten years; that of Azoth by Plammeticus, which lafted twenty; that of Nineveh, where we find Sardanapalus defended himself for the space of seven. And Cyrus might have lain a long time before Babylon, where they had laid in a stock of provifions for twenty years, if he had not used a different method for taking it.

As they found blockades extremely tedious from their duration, they invented the method of scaling, which was done by raifing a great number of ladders, against the walls, by means whereof a great many files of foldiers might climb up together, and force their way in.

To render this method of fcaling impracticable, or at least ineffectual, they made the walls of their city extremely high, and the towers, wherewith they were flanked, ftill confiderably higher, that the ladders of the befiegers might not be able to reach the top of them. This obliged them to find out fome other way of getting to the top of ramparts; and this was building moving towers of wood, ftill higher than the walls, and by approaching them with thofe wooden towers. On the top of these towers, which formed a kind of platform, was placed a competent number of foldiers, who, with darts and arrows, and the affiftance of their balift and catapultæ, fcowered the ramparts, and cleared them of the defenders; and then from a lower ftage of the tower, they let down a kind

Homer makes no mention of the ram, or any warlike engine.

of

of draw-bridge, which refted upon the wall, and gave the fol diers admittance.

་ ་་

A third method, which extremely fhortened the length of their fieges, was that of the battering-ram, by which they made breaches in the walls, and opened themfelves a paffage into the places befieged. This battering-ram was a vaft thick beam of timber, with a ftong head of iron or brafs at the end of it; which was pushed with the utmoft force against the walls. There were feveral kinds of them; but I fhall give a more ample and particular account of thefe, as well as of other warlike engines, in another place.

They had ftill a fourth method of attacking places, which was, that of fapping and undermining; and this was done two different ways; that is, either to carry on a fubterranean path quite under the walls, into the heart of the city, and fo open themselves a paffage and entrance into it; or elfe, after they had fapped the foundation of the wall, and put fupporters under it, to fill the fpace with all 'forts of combustible matter, and then to fet that matter on fire, in order to burn down the fupporters, calcine the materials of the wall, and throw down part of it.

2. Their manner of defending places.

With refpect to the fortifying and defending of towns the ancients made ufe of all the fundamental principles and effential rules now practifed in the art of fortification. They had the method of overflowing the country round about, to hinder the enemy's approaching the town; they made their ditches deep, and of a fteep afcent, and fenced them round with pallifadoes, to make the enemy's afcent or defcent the more difficult; they made their ramparts very thick, and fenced them with ftone, or brick-work, that the battering-ram fhould not be able to demolish them; and very high, that the fealing of them should be equally impracticable; they had their projecting towers, from whence our modern baftions derived their origin, for the flanking of the courtins, the ingenious invention of different machines for the fhooting of arrows, throwing of darts and lances, and hurling of great ftones with vaft force and violence; their parapets and battlements in the walls for the foldiers fecurity, and their covered galleries, which went quite round the walls, and ferved as fubterraneous paffages; their intrenchments behind the breaches, and necks of the towers; they made their fallies too, in order to deftroy the works of the befiegers, and to fet their engines on fire; as alfo their counterines to defeat the mines of the enemy; and laftly, they buil

citadals

eltadels, as places of retreat in cafe of extremity, to ferve as the last resource to a garrifon upon the point of being forced, and to make the taking of the town of no effect, or at least to obtain a more advantageous capitulation. All these methods of defending places against thofe that befieged them, were known in the art of fortification, as it was practifed among the ancients; and they are the very fame as are now in ufe among the moderns, allowing for such alteration as the difference of arms has occafioned.

I thought it neceffary to enter into this detail, in order to give the reader an idea of the ancient manner of defending fortified towns; as alfo to remove a prejudice which prevails among many of the moderns, who imagine, that, because new names are now given to the fame things, the things themselves are therefore different in nature and principle. Since the invention of gun-powder, cannon indeed have been substituted in the place of the battering-ram; and musket-shot in the room of baliftæ, catapulta, fcorpions, javelins, flings and arrows. But does it therefore follow, that any of the fundamental rules of fortification are changed? By no means. The ancients made as much of the folidity of bodies, and the mechanick powers of motion, as art and ingenuity would admit. VII. The condition of the PERSIAN forces after CYRUS's time.

I have already observed, more than once, that we must not judge of the merit and courage of the Perfian troops at all times, by what we fee of them in Cyrus's reign. I shall conclude this article of war with a judicious reflection made by Monfieur Boffuet, bishop of Meaux, on that fubject. He obferves, that, after the death of that prince, the Perfians, generally speaking, were ignorant of the great advantages that refult from severity, order, or difcipline; from the drawing up of an army; their order in marching and encamping; and that happiness of conduct which moves thofe great bodies without diforder or confufion. Full of a vain oftentation of their power and greatnefs; and relying more upon ftrength than prudence, upon the number rather than the choice of their troops, they thought they had done all that was neceffary, when they had drawn together immenfe numbers of people, who fought indeed with refolation enough, but without order, and who found themselves incumbered with the vaft multitudes of useless perfons, in the retinue of the king and his chief officers. For to fuch an height was their luxury grown, that they would needs have the fame magnificence, and enjoy the fame pleasures and delights in the army, as in the king's court; VOL. IL

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fo

fo that in their wars the kings marched accompanied with thele wives, their concubines, and all their eunuchs. Their filver and gold plate, and all their rich furniture, were carried after them in prodigious quantities; and, in fhort, all the equipage and utenfils fo voluptuous a life requires. An army compofed in this manner, and already clogged with the exceffive number of troops, had the additional load of vaft multitudes of fuch as did not fight. In this confufion, the troops could not act in Concert: Their orders never reached them in time; and in action every thing went on at random, as it were, without the poffibility of any commander's preventing diforder. Add to this, the neceflity they were under of finishing an expedition quickly, and of paffing into an enemy's country with great rapidity; becaufe fuch a vaft body of people, greedy not only of the neceffaries of life, but of fuch things alfo as were requilite for luxury and pleasure, confumed all that could be met with in a very fhort time; nor indeed is it easy to comprehend from whence they could procure fubfistence.

But with all this vaft train, the Perfians aftonished those- nations that were as unexpert in military affairs as themselves and many of thofe tha were better verfed therein, were yet overcome by them, being either weakened or diftreffed by their own divifions, or overpowered by their enemy's numbers. And by this means Egypt, as proud as fhe was of her antiquity, her wife inftitutions, and the conquefts of her Sefoftris, became fubject to the Perfians. Nor was it difficult for them to con quer the leffer Afia, and fuch Greek colonies as the luxury of Afia had corrupted. But when they came to engage with Grecce. i felf, they found what they had never met with before, regu lar and well-difciplined troops, fkilful and experienced com manders, foldiers accustomed to temperance, whofe bodies were inured to toil and labour, and rendered both robust and active, by wrestling and other exercifes practifed in that country. The Grecian armies indeed were but fmall; but they were like your ftrong, vigorous bodies, that feem to be all nerves and finews, and full of fpirits in every part: At the fame time they were fo well commanded, and fo prompt in obeying the orders of their generals, that one would have thought all the foldiers had been actuated by one foul; fo perfect an harmony was there in all their motions.

IDO

ARTICLE III

ARTS and SCIENCES.

DO not pretend to give an account of the eaftern poetry, of which we know little more than what we find in the books of the Old Teftament. Thofe precious fragments are fufficient to let us know the origin of poefy; its true design; the ufe that was made of it by thofe infpired writers, namely, to celebrate the perfections, and fing the wonderful works of God, as alfo the dignity and fublimity of ftyle which ought to accompany it, and be adapted to the majefty of the fubjects it treats. The discourses of Job's friends, who lived in the east, as he himself did, and who were distinguished among the Gentiles, as much by their learning as their birth, may likewife give us fome notion of the eallern eloquence in thofe early ages.

What the Egyptian priests faid of the Greeks in general, and of the Athenians in particular, according to (d) Plato, that they were but children in antiquity, is very true with refpect to arts and fciences, of which they have falfely afcribed the invention to chimerical perfons, much pofterior to the deluge. (e) The holy fcripture informs us, that before that epocha, God had difcovered to mankind the art of tilling and cultivating the ground; of feeding their flocks and cattle, when their habitation was in tents; of spinning wool and flax, and weaving it into ftuffs and linen; of forging and polifting iron and brass, and putting them to numberlefs ufes that are neceffary and convenient for life and fociety.

We learn from the fame fcriptures, that very foon after the deluge, human induftry had made feveral difcoveries very worthy of admiration; as, 1. The art of fpinning gold thread, and of interweaving it with ftuffs. 2. That of beating gold, and with light thin leaves of it to gild wood and other materials. 3. The fecret of cafting metals; as brafs, filver, or gold; and of making all forts of figures with them in imitation of nature; of representing any kind of different objects; and of making an infinite variety of veffels of thofe metals, for ufe and ornament. 4. The art of painting, or carving upon wood, ftone, or marble: And, 5. to name no more, that of dyeing their filks and ftuff, and giving them the most exquifite and beautiful colours.

As it was in Afia that men firft fettled after the deluge, it is eafy to conceive that Afia must have been the pure, as it were, of arts and sciences, of which the remembrance had been preM2 ferved

(d) In Timeo, p, 22.

(e) Gen. c; vi.