VITRUVIUS.
violence, threw down the props; so that all who were therein were overwhelmed by the
quantity of water, and ruins of the mine.—When a rampart also had been prepared with
trunks of trees opposite to their walls, they, by throwing against it from their balistae red¬
hot iron bars, consumed the whole. And when the ram tortoise approached to batter their
wall, they let down a rope with a noose to it, and with this bridled the ram: then, wind-
ing the rope round a wheel by means of a capstan, they held its head suspended, so that it
could not touch the wall; and at last, with burning malleoli shot from the balistae, they
destroyed the whole machine. Thus these cities obtained the victory, and were preserved.
not by the help of machines, but by the skill of their architects opposed to the power of
machines.
Of the construction of such machines for peace and war as Ihave judged the most useful.
Thave, as well as I have been able, treated in this book; and I have, in the preceding nine.
discoursed of the several other parts of architecture: so that the whole work might, in ten
books, explain all the branches of the art.
THE END.