ἱστορίαι Historiai
Liv. 33.5 The History of Rome, Livy; served verbatim
Quinctius had been led to hope that The bes in Uhthlotis would be betrayed to him by Timon, the first man in the city, and accordingly he marched thither. He rode up to the walls with a small body of cavalry and light infantry, but his expectations were so far frustrated by a sortie from the city that he would have been in imminent danger had not infantry and cavalry from the cf .mp come to his assistance in time. When he found that his ho pes were illusory and that there was no prospect of their being realised he desisted from any further attempt for the time. Definite information having reached him, however, that the king was now in Thessalv. though his exact whereabouts .夕子飞J was unknown, he sent his men into the fields round to cut down and prepare stakes for a stockade. Both the Macedonians and the Greeks made use of stockades, but they did not adapt their materials either for convenience in carrying or for defensive strength. The trees they cut down were too large and too branching for the soldiery to with their arms, and when they had put them in position and fenced their camp with them the demolition of their rampart was an easy matter. The large trunks stood up apart from one another and the numerous stout branches afforded a good hold, so that two, or at the most three, men by pulling together would bring a tree down, making at once a gap as初de as a gate, and there was nothing at hand with which to block the opening. On the other hand, the stakes which the Romans cut were light and generally forked初th three, or at the most four, branches, so that, with his arms slung at his back, the Roman soldier could carry several of them togethercomfortably. Then again they fix them so close together inthe ground and interlace the branches in such a way that it isimpossible to discover to which particular tree any of the outsidebranches belong, and these are made so sharp and so closelyintertwined that there is no room left for inserting the hand, nothing can be got hold of to be dragged away, nor if there were would the enemy succeed in doing so because the branches are hooked together like the links of a chain. If one happens to be pulled out, it leaves only a small opening and it is very easy to put another少its place.___.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← Liv. 33.4 contents Liv. 33.6 →

The History of Rome, Livy — translated by Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Apparatus shelf + pinned Wikisource — Livy, The History of Rome (Rev. Canon Roberts translation, Everyman's Library) · Rev. Canon Roberts, Everyman's Library (J. M. Dent & Sons / E. P. Dutton), first issue 1912; six volumes
license: public-domain (the Roberts translation's Everyman first issue is 1912, pre-1930; Wikisource dates the translation 1905 — either way decades inside the US public domain; digital-door text carries no additional rights)