he sea. On the landward side, where Gaius Trebonius
conducted the siege, the most resolute resistance was still continued;
but in spite of the frequent sallies of the Albioecian mercenaries
and the skilful expenditure of the immense stores of projectiles
accumulated in the city, the works of the besiegers were at length
advanced up to the walls and one of the towers fell. The Massiliots
declared that they would give up the defence, but desired
to conclude the capitulation with Caesar himself, and entreated
the Roman commander to suspend the siege operations till
Caesar's arrival. Trebonius had express orders from Caesar
to spare the town as far as possible; he granted the armistice desired.
But when the Massiliots made use of it for an artful sally,
in which they completely burnt the one-half of the almost unguarded
Roman works, the struggle of the siege began anew and with increased
exasperation. The vigorous commander of the Romans repaired
with surprising rapidity the destroyed towers and the mound;
soon the Massiliots were once more completely invested.

Massilia Capitulates

When Caesar on his return from the conquest of Spain arrived
before their city, he found it reduced to extremities
partly by the enemy's attacks, partly by famine and pestilence,
and ready for the second time--on this occasion in right earnest--
to surrender on any terms. Domitius alone, remembering the indulgence
of the victor which he had shamefully misused, embarked in a boat
and stole through the Roman fleet, to seek a third battle-field
for his implacable resentment. Caesar's soldiers had sworn
to put to the sword the whole male population of the perfidious city,
and vehemently demanded from the general the signal for plunder.
But Caesar, mindful here also of his great task of establishing
Helleno-Italic civilization in the west, was not to be coerced
into furnishing a sequel to the destruction of Corinth.
Massilia--the most remote from the mother-country of all those cities,
once so numerous, free, and powerful, that belonged to the old Ionic
mariner-nation, and almost the last in which the Hellenic seafaring life
had preserved itself fresh and pure, as in fact it was the last
Greek city that fought at sea--Massilia had to surrender its magazines
of arms and naval stores to the victor, and lost a portion
of its territory and of its privileges; but it retained its freedom
and its nationality and continued, though with diminished p