The Greeks drew up all their ships on shore, and the men camped in huts
built in front of the ships. There was thus a long row of huts with the
ships behind them, and in these huts the Greeks lived all through the ten
years that the siege of Troy lasted. In these days they do not seem to
have understood how to conduct a siege. You would have expected the
Greeks to build towers and dig trenches all round Troy, and from the
towers watch the roads, so that provisions might not be brought in from
the country. This is called "investing" a town, but the Greeks never
invested Troy. Perhaps they had not men enough; at all events the place
remained open, and cattle could always be driven in to feed the warriors
and the women and children.

Moreover, the Greeks for long never seem to have tried to break down one
of the gates, nor to scale the walls, which were very high, with ladders.
On the other hand, the Trojans and allies never ventured to drive the
Greeks into the sea; they commonly remained within the walls or
skirmished just beneath them. The older men insisted on this way of
fighting, in spite of Hector, who always wished to attack and storm the
camp of the Greeks. Neither side had machines for throwing heavy stones,
such as the Romans used later, and the most that the Greeks did was to
follow Achilles and capture small neighbouring cities, and take the women
for slaves, and drive the cattle. They got provisions and wine from the
Phoenicians, who came in ships, and made much profit out of the war.

It was not till the tenth year that the war began in real earnest, and
scarcely any of the chief leaders had fallen. Fever came upon the
Greeks, and all day the camp was black with smoke, and all night shone
with fire from the great piles of burning wood, on which the Greeks
burned their dead, whose bones they then buried under hillocks of earth.