a and, after
failing in the attempt to storm Utica, withdrew from his attack on that
town and turned his strength against the Carthaginian army in the field;
or else recourse must be had to regular siege, as by the Romans at Veii,
Capua, Carthage, Jerusalem, and divers other cities which they reduced
in this way.

The capture of towns by stratagem combined with force is effected, as
by the Romans at Palaeopolis, through a secret understanding with some
within the walls. Many attempts of this sort have been made, both by the
Romans and by others, but few successfully, because the least hindrance
disarranges the plan of action, and because such hindrances are very
likely to occur. For either the plot is discovered before it can be
carried out, as it readily may, whether from treachery on the part of
those to whom it has been communicated, or from the difficulties which
attend its inception, the preliminary arrangements having to be made
with the enemy and with persons with whom it is not permitted, save
under some pretext or other, to hold intercourse; or if it be not
discovered while it is being contrived, a thousand difficulties will
still be met with in its execution. For if you arrive either before or
after the appointed time, all is ruined. The faintest sound, as of the
cackling of the geese in the Capitol, the least departure from some
ordinary routine, the most trifling mistake or error, mars the whole
enterprise. Add to which, the darkness of night lends further terror
to the perils of such undertakings; while the great majority of those
engaged in them, having no knowledge of the district or places into
which they are brought, are bewildered and disconcerted by the least
mishap, and put to flight by every imaginary danger. In secret nocturnal
enterprises of this sort, no man was ever more successful than Aratus of
Sicyon, although in any encounter by day there never was a more arrant
coward. This we must suppose due rather to some special and occult
quality inherent in the man, than to success being naturally to be
looked for in the like attempts. Such enterprises, accordingly, are
often planned, but few are put into execution, and fewer still with
success.

When cities are acquired by surrender, the surrender is either voluntary
or under compulsion; voluntary, when the citizens appeal to you for
protection against some threatened danger from without, as Capua
submitted to the Romans; or where they are moved by