sentry duty. This done, the main army marched away. It needed no great
host to keep the few Plataeans within their walls until they should
consume all their food and yield to famine, a slower but more
irresistible foe than all the Lacedaemonian power.

Fortunately for the besieged, they were well provisioned, and for more
than a year remained in peace within their city, not attacked by their
foes and receiving no aid from friends. Besides the eighty Athenians
within the walls no help came to the Plataeans during the long siege. At
length provisions began to fail. It was evident that they must die like
rats in a cage, surrender to their foes, or make a desperate break for
freedom.

The last expedient was proposed by their general. It was daring, and
seemed desperate, to seek to escape over the blockading wall with its
armed guards. So desperate did it appear that half the garrison feared
to attempt it, deeming that it would end in certain death. The other
half, more than two hundred in number, decided that it was better to
dare death in the field than to meet death in the streets.

The wall was furnished with frequent battlements and occasional towers,
and its whole circuit was kept under watch day and night. But as time
went on the besiegers grew more lax in discipline, and on wet nights
sought the shelter of the towers, leaving the spaces between without
guards. This left a chance for escape which the Plataeans determined to
embrace.

By counting the layers of bricks in the blockading wall they were able
to estimate its height, and prepared ladders long enough to reach its
top. Then they waited for a suitable time. At length it came, a cold,
dark, stormy December night, with a roaring wind, and showers of rain
and sleet.

The shivering guards cowered within their sheltering towers. Out from
their gates marched the Plataeans, lightly armed, and, to avoid any
sound, with the right foot naked. The left was shod, that it might have
firmer hold on the muddy ground. Moving with the wind in their faces,
and so far apart that their arms could not strike and clatter, they
reached and crossed the ditch and lifted their ladders against the wall.
Eleven men, armed only with sword and breastplate, mounted first. Others
bearing spears followed, leaving their shields for their comrades below
to carry up and hand to them. This first company was to attack and
master the two towers right and left. This they did, surprising and
sl