in the illustration, where there
occurs, moreover, a very curious ornamentation of the battlements.
[PLATE CX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 110]

These fortified places the Assyrians attacked in three principal ways.
Sometimes they endeavored to take them by escalade, advancing for this
purpose a number of long ladders against different parts of the walls,
thus distracting the enemy's attention and seeking to find a weak point.
Up the ladders proceeded companies of spearmen and archers in
combination, the spearmen invariably taking the lead, since their large
shields afforded them a protection which archers advancing in file up a
ladder could not have. Meanwhile from below a constant discharge was
kept up by bowmen and slingers, the former of whom were generally
protected by the _gerrhon_ or high wicker shield, held in front of them
by a comrade. The besieged endeavored to dislodge and break the ladders,
which are often represented in fragments; or, failing in this attempt,
sought by hurling down large stones, and by discharges from their bows
and slings, to precipitate and destroy their assailants. If finally they
were unable by these means to keep the Assyrians from reaching the
topmost rounds of the ladders, they had recourse to their spears, and
man to man, spear to spear, and shield to shield, they still struggled
to defend themselves. The Assyrians always represent the sieges which
they conduct as terminating successfully: but we may be tolerably sure
that in many instances the invader was beaten back, and forced to
relinquish his prey, or to try fresh methods of obtaining it.

If the escalade failed, or if it was thought unadvisable to attempt it,
the plan most commonly adopted was to try the effect of the
battering-ram. [PLATE CX., Fig. 3.] The Assyrian armies were abundantly
supplied with these engines, of which we see as many as seven engaged in
a single siege. They were variously designed and arranged. Some had a
head shaped like the point of a spear; others, one more resembling the
end of a blunderbuss. All of them were covered with a frame-work, which
was of ozier, wood, felt, or skins, for the better protection of those
who worked the implement; but some appear to have been stationary,
having their framework resting on the ground itself, while others were
moveable, being provided with wheels, which in the early times were six,
but in the later times four only. Again, sometimes, combined with the
ram