by the mounds of the Persians, which prevented it
from running off, pressed with continually increasing force against the
defences of the city, till at last the wall, in one part, proved too
weak to withstand the tremendous weight which bore upon it, and gave way
suddenly for the space of a hundred and fifty feet. What further damage
was done to the town we know not; but a breach was opened through which
the Persians at once made ready to pour into the place, regarding it as
impossible that so huge a gap should be either repaired or effectually
defended. Sapor took up his position on an artificial eminence, while
his troops rushed to the assault. First of all marched the heavy
cavalry, accompanied by the horse-archers; next came the elephants,
bearing iron towers upon their backs, and in each tower a number
of bowmen; intermixed with the elephants were a certain amount of
heavy-armed foot. It was a strange column with which to attack a breach;
and its composition does not say much for Persian siege tactics, which
were always poor and ineffective, and which now, as usually, resulted in
failure. The horses became quickly entangled in the ooze and mud which
the waters had left behind them as they subsided; the elephants were
even less able to overcome these difficulties, and as soon as they
received a wound sank down--never to rise again--in the swamp. Sapor
hastily gave orders for the assailing column to retreat and seek the
friendly shelter of the Persian camp, while he essayed to maintain his
advantage in a different way. His light archers were ordered to the
front, and, being formed into divisions which were to act as reliefs,
received orders to prevent the restoration of the ruined wall by
directing an incessant storm of arrows into the gap made by the waters.
But the firmness and activity of the garrison and inhabitants defeated
this well-imagined proceeding. While the heavy-armed troops stood in
the gap receiving the flights of arrows and defending themselves as
they best could, the unarmed multitude raised a new wall in their rear,
which, by the morning of the next day, was six feet in height. This
last proof of his enemies' resolution and resource seems to have finally
convinced Sapor of the hopelessness of his enterprise. Though he still
continued the siege for a while, he made no other grand attack, and at
length drew off his forces, having lost twenty thousand men before the
walls, and wasted a hundred days, or