History of Rome

​When Perseus heard that the Aetolians were approaching, abandoning the siege of the city which he was attacking, he merely ravaged the lands, departed from Amphilochia, and returned to Macedonia.

​And the plundering of the maritime coast recalled the Aetolians from there. Pleuratus, king of the Illyrians, having entered the Corinthian Gulf with sixty light vessels, and having joined the Achaean ships which were at Patrae, was devastating the coastal districts of Aetolia.

​Against them a thousand Aetolians were sent, who, wherever the fleet steered its course along the windings of the coast, met them by shorter paths.

​And the Romans at Ambracia, by battering the walls in several places with battering-rams, had laid bare a considerable portion of the city, yet they were not able to penetrate into the city;

​for a new wall was thrown up in place of the demolished one with equal speed, and the armed men standing on the ruins served as a rampart.

​Therefore, since the consul’s undertaking made little progress by open force, he resolved to drive a secret mine from a place previously covered with penthouses; and for some time, as they were at work day and night, they deceived the enemy, not only by digging under ground but also by carrying away the earth.

​A heap of earth suddenly rising up was an indication of the work to the townsmen, and fearing lest a way had already been made into the city by the undermining of the walls, they began to dig a trench inside the wall opposite that work which was covered by the penthouses.

​When they reached such a depth as the lowest floor of the mine could possibly be, keeping silence, they applied their ears in several places to catch the sound of those who were digging.

​When they heard this, they opened a direct way into the mine, nor was it a matter of great labor; for in a moment they reached the wall which had been suspended by the enemy over the cavity by means of props.

​There, the works having joined, as a passage lay open from the trench into the mine, they engaged in a secret battle under ground, at first with the very iron tools which they had used in the work, and then quickly also with armed men coming up; this was then rendered more sluggish by those who blocked up the mine wherever they pleased, now by stretching haircloths in front, now by hastily placing doors in the way.

​A new device, also of no great labor, was contrived against those who were in the mine. They made a cask bored through at the bottom, in which a tube of moderate size could be inserted, and an iron tube, and an iron lid for the cask, which was itself perforated in several places. Having filled this cask with fine feathers, they placed it with its mouth turned toward the mine.

​Through the holes of the lid very long spears, which they call sarissas, projected to keep off the enemy. Having placed a blacksmith’s bellows at the head of the tube, they blew and kindled a light spark of fire that had been put into the feathers.

​Thence, when not only a great quantity of smoke but an even more pungent one with a foul odor from the burnt feathers had filled the whole mine, scarcely anyone was able to remain inside.