Hippodrome of Constantinople 113 Medal struck after Sir E. Godfrey’s murder 151 Medal of Titus Oates 168 Prow of an ancient vessel found at Genoa 198 Disposition of Athenian fleet at Arginusæ 201 Medal struck after the massacre of the De Witts Obverse 211 Reverse 212 Bust of Socrates 218 Head of Plato 242 The medals have been engraved from the originals in the British Museum. HISTORICAL PARALLELS. CHAPTER XIII. [Illustration: Medal struck after the siege of Ostend.] Siege of Platæa—Numantia—Tyre—Syracuse—Lines of circumvallation—Siege of Jerusalem—Of La Réole—Effects of the invention of Gunpowder—Siege of Ostend—Magdeburg—Character of the mercenary troops of the seventeenth century—Siege of Zaragoza. The cautious policy of Pericles, and the plague, combined to render the two first years of the war barren of incidents. The third campaign opened more energetically with the siege of Platæa, the old and faithful ally of Athens. This is the earliest siege of which we have any full and particular account; and some surprise may be felt at the rudeness and inefficacy of the means employed in prosecuting it by the most military nation of Greece. For this, however, all previous history prepares us. To the early Greeks fortifications of any strength appear to have presented insuperable obstacles. Not a city of any note can be mentioned which was taken by fair fighting. Troy was impregnable by force. Eira was taken in consequence of its being accidentally left unguarded.[1] Ithome held out for ten years, and at last obtained honourable terms of surrender. And when Cyrus marched against Babylon, the inhabitants, trusting in their walls and their magazines, “made no account at all of being besieged; but Cyrus became greatly puzzled what to do, having spent much time there and made no progress at all.”[2] The stratagem by which he took it at last is well known: he laid dry the bed of the Euphrates, and introduced a body of troops through the deserted channel; yet danger, even from this quarter, had been foreseen and guarded against, if proper caution had been used. Each side of the river was lined with walls, and gates were placed at the end of the streets which led down to the water side; so that, as Herodotus himself remarks, if the Persians had been on their guard the attempt might have been defeated by merely closing the gates, and the assailants might have been cut off entirely by missile weapons. But, to return to Platæa; the Spartans were notoriously unskilled, even among the Greeks, in this branch of warfare. Military engines they had none;