While the Plataeans were thus vigorously defending themselves, and before the mound was completed, the Peloponnesians brought siege-engines to bear on the wall, one of which greatly alarmed the besieged garrison, by severely shaking their wall of timber and bricks. But this new mode of attack was frustrated, like the rest, by the ingenuity of the Plataeans, who dropped nooses over the ends of the battering-rams, and drew them up just before the moment of impact. Moreover they suspended heavy beams of wood at intervals along the wall, each beam hanging by long chains from two cranes which rested on the wall and projected outwards from it; and whenever a ram was being brought up, they drew up the beam at right angles to it, and then, letting go the chains, dropped the ponderous timber, which came crashing down on the ram, and broke off its head. Thus baffled at every point, the Peloponnesians began to despair of taking the town by assault, and thought that they would be compelled to form a blockade. But before being driven to this costly and tedious operation, they determined to try and set fire to the place, which seemed possible, as it was but small in extent. So they waited till the wind was in the right direction, and then brought vast quantities of faggots, and threw them into the space between the mound and the wall; and this being soon filled up, they piled up more faggots as far as they could reach within the city itself, and then throwing in lighted torches, with brimstone and pitch, they set fire to the whole mass. Then arose a great sheet of flame, such as had never been raised by human hands, though not, of course, to be compared to the vast forest-fires, produced by natural means; yet it was sufficient to cause a panic among the Plataeans, and bring their town to the verge of destruction. The heat was so intense that a whole quarter of the place was cleared of its defenders, and if a wind had arisen to drive the flame inwards, nothing could have saved the whole town from destruction. [Footnote: Thucydides seems to imply that there was a wind, though a slight one.] But fortunately the breeze was but slight, and it is said also that a heavy fall of rain came on, and quenched the conflagration. Having failed in their last attempt, the Peloponnesians sent away part of their army, and employed those who remained in building a blockading wall round Plataea. The work was completed towards the end of September, and they then disbanded their army, leaving a force sufficient to guard half the wall; for the Thebans, relentless in their zeal against Plataea, took charge of the other half. The number of the besieged was four hundred and eighty, of whom eighty were Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to make bread for the garrison. NAVAL VICTORIES OF PHORMIO I