To attempt to give even a sketch of all the sieges of history, in addition to involving a great chance of sameness, would require many volumes; we shall therefore confine ourselves to accounts, as intelligible and graphic as we can make them, of such of these great human conflicts as have changed the fate of empires, forwarded or impeded the progress of peoples, or have been illustrated by the actions of men of world-spread celebrity. But, whilst only giving the details of important sieges, we shall not pass by the innumerable interesting incidents with which the accounts of minor sieges abound: it is, indeed, not uncommon to meet, in contests unimportant to the world, with the noblest and most extraordinary acts of devotedness or courage of which individual man is capable. BACTRA. A.C. 2134. In all arts the East has led the van, and has evidently been as far advanced before the Western nations in the great one of fortifying its cities as in most others. The first siege we can obtain any account of is that of Bactra, and we are told it was so fortified by nature and art, that Ninus, at the head of four hundred thousand men, would never have been able to take it, if a stratagem had not been suggested to him by Semiramis, the wife of one of his officers. This account proves that fortifying cities was not then a new invention, for it is not likely that such a degree of perfection could have been attained by a first attempt. Everything in the East seems to have been upon a gigantic scale: the cities were immense in extent, the height of the walls and towers, and the depth and width of the surrounding moats or ditches, almost incredible. And yet, modern research is stamping the astounding accounts of historians and topographers with the broad seal of truth--everything in the East _was_ on a gigantic scale: where human life and human labour, in densely-populated countries, were without restriction at the command of vain and ambitious despots, the Pyramids, the walls of Babylon, and the palaces of Baalbec cease to be miracles.