The Ten Thousand

Our first assault was repelled with losses. The ancient fortress's barbican, the single narrow entry passage through the outer wall, was barely wide enough for three men to pass abreast, flanked as it was by two thick towers with sloping bases, squatting toadlike and malevolent on either side of the access. Window slits pierced the stone walls of the towers fifteen feet above the ground, through which the defenders emitted a murderous hail of arrows across the entry, point-blank into our faces. Gri

Still, we were not discouraged, because we had anticipated such obstacles. On our climb through the driving rain up that miserable mountain path, we laboriously hauled a dozen thick planks of oak, each cu

The ram itself was not of cu

The first pass was made without the ram, as the ten pallbearers dashed out with the roof while another six "pickers" scurried beneath, slipping in the mud and the frozen slush to clear away rocks and obstacles in the path to the door. On their return run, they picked up the dead from our previous attack, whose bodies had been almost torn apart from the arrows and rocks raining down on them. Strangely, the rebels above did not impede us in this task-a few desultory arrows landed on the planks and skittered harmlessly off to the side, but otherwise they limited themselves to shouting out obscene taunts.

This we accomplished by dusk, leaving us time for only one more pass. The rain had now become a driving sleet, and the gloom of the weather and darkness of the approaching night made it impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. As the pushers took their position under the roof, the army massed behind, stretching out far down the hill because of the narrow confines of the space. The stone was given a slight shove from the top of the rise; it tipped ponderously forward, and the hands of the four pushers lent it strength, until it reached the speed of a slow walk, then of a trot. The men carrying the heavy shelter eyed it nervously, lest it veer to the side and crush them beneath its implacable course, but the slope was true and the boulder well rounded. Sweating and cursing, the pushers bent their backs and thighs into the iron rods, relentlessly gaining in speed. The army behind trotted, then ran, then sprinted toward the towers, their voices mounting in a roar that resounded off the approaching walls in a rising chorus of encouragement and anticipation. By the time the boulder neared the gate the pushers were struggling to keep up with it as it leaped and bounded over the path in a fury. Fifteen yards from the gate the pushers released their grip on the axle. The pallbearers skidded to a stop and the boulder shot out from beneath the roof. Behind them stormed the lead phalanx, a crack tribal regiment of Hippothontis who had fought and bullied rival companies for the honor of leading the charge, shields raised above their heads for protection and bellowing the battle cry. The huge stone surged forward, sending sprays of frozen water and mud to the sides, and at the last, just before reaching its target, it hit a small rise and flew into the air, slamming into the door dead in the middle with a huge crash.

The stout bar inside snapped with the force of the direct hit, and the enormous slab of oak was knocked askew on its hinges, opening a gap of a foot on the top and sides, with the outer corner leaning drunkenly against the ground. The impact splintered the wood across the waist of the door and sent an enormous crack ru

But closing the door was not the rebels' intent. Even before the hoplites reached the entry, the door shuddered and lurched, and with great and ponderous effort creaked open as if of its own accord. The defenders on top of the towers stood silent and unmoving, peering down at us through the sheets of thickened rain, and the cheer from the Athenians rose up even more fiercely at this sign of the rebels' surrender. We raced up to the entrance, half blinded by the sleet and the spattering mud thrown by the thrusting feet of the men in front of us, and the huge door swung wide inward, revealing the shadowy blackness of the vault within the ten-foot-thick walls of the Fortress of Phyle. As we rushed into the gap, the dragons came to life.

Horrendous balls of flame leaped out from the darkness, the stench of sulfur overpowering us as the black, stinking liquid blasted onto the men's faces and bodies, setting them afire and sending them screaming and stumbling in blindness. Murderous streams of flame roared out thirty feet, forty feet or more, three in succession across the width of the opening; each paused momentarily in turn like creatures drawing their breath, and then they again resumed their hellish blowing. In the darkness behind we could see the faces of Thrasybulus' rebels, gleaming and ghastly in the light of the flames, their eyes empty black holes in the pits of their helmets, their teeth gleaming yellow and fierce as they threw back their heads and grimaced at the strain of their terrible task.