ring, for the carrying of a city by assault is
perhaps the most horrible scene which the passions and crimes of men
ever offer to the view of heaven.

It is horrible, because the soldiers, exasperated to fury by the
resistance which they meet with, and by the awful malignity of the
passions always excited in the hour of battle, if they succeed, burst
suddenly into the precincts of domestic life, and find sometimes
thousands of families--mothers, and children, and defenseless
maidens--at the mercy of passions excited to phrensy. Soldiers, under
such circumstances, can not be restrained, and no imagination can
conceive the horrors of the sacking of a city, carried by assault,
after a protracted siege. Tigers do not spring upon their prey with
greater ferocity than man springs, under such circumstances, to the
perpetration of every possible cruelty upon his fellow man. After an
ordinary battle upon an open field, the conquerors have only men,
armed like themselves, to wreak their vengeance upon. The scene is
awful enough, however, here. But in carrying a city by storm, which
takes place usually at an unexpected time, and often in the night, the
maddened and victorious assaulter suddenly burst into the sacred
scenes of domestic peace, and seclusion, and love--the very worst of
men, filled with the worst of passions, stimulated by the resistance
they have encountered, and licensed by their victory to give all these
passions the fullest and most unrestricted gratification. To plunder,
burn, destroy, and kill, are the lighter and more harmless of the
crimes they perpetrate.

Thebes was carried by assault. Alexander did not wait for the slow
operations of a siege. He watched a favorable opportunity, and burst
over and through the outer line of fortifications which defended the
city. The attempt to do this was very desperate, and the loss of life
great; but it was triumphantly successful. The Thebans were driven
back toward the inner wall, and began to crowd in, through the gates,
into the city, in terrible confusion. The Macedonians were close upon
them, and pursuers and pursued, struggling together, and trampling
upon and killing each other as they went, flowed in, like a boiling
and raging torrent which nothing could resist, through the open
arch-way.

It was impossible to close the gates. The whole Macedonian force were
soon in full possession of the now defenseless houses, and for many
hours screams, and wailings, and c