by it. Accordingly, they thought it better and more for their interest
to reduce towns in any other way than this; and in all those years
during which they were constantly engaged in wars we find very few
instances of their proceeding by siege.

For the capture of towns, therefore, they trusted either to assault or
to surrender. Assaults were effected either by open force, or by force
and stratagem combined. When a town was assailed by open force, the
walls were stormed without being breached, and the assailants were said
"_aggredi urbem corona,_" because they encircled the city with their
entire strength and kept up an attack on all sides. In this way they
often succeeded in carrying towns, and even great towns, at a first
onset, as when Scipio took new Carthage in Spain. But when they failed
to carry a town by storm, they set themselves to breach the walls with
battering rams and other warlike engines; or they dug mines so as to
obtain an entrance within the walls, this being the method followed in
taking Veii; or else, to be on a level with the defenders, they erected
towers of timber or threw up mounds of earth against the outside of the
walls so as to reach the top.

Of these methods of attack, the first, wherein the city was entirely
surrounded, exposed the defenders to more sudden perils and left them
more doubtful remedies. For while it was necessary for them to have a
sufficient force at all points, it might happen that the forces at
their disposal were not numerous enough to be everywhere at once, or to
relieve one another. Or if their numbers were sufficient, they might not
all be equally resolute in standing their ground, and their failure at
any one point involved a general defeat. Consequently, as I have said,
this method of attack was often successful. But when it did not succeed
at the first, it was rarely renewed, being a method dangerous to the