When we compare the intestine wars of the Greeks with the sweeping conquests of the East, we are struck with the vast disproportion in the numbers of combatants engaged, and we are brought to the conviction that acts of heroism, devotedness, and patriotism seem more common and more brilliant where men are but few, than when they are in great masses. The siege of Platææ was carried on on both sides by such a small number of combatants, that the issue might be supposed to have but very little interest; and yet, what a charm there is about everything that relates to Greece! Its feuds are the most important wars in history; its warriors and statesmen the most renowned in the universe, although the territories in question would not equal in revenue those of great English nobles or millionnaires, and the men in fact were not above influential burgesses. The Peloponnesian war began by the Thebans attacking Platææ, a city of Bœotia, in alliance with the Athenians. Some traitors opened the gates to them. The citizens of Platææ, attacking them in the night, killed them all, with the exception of two hundred whom they made prisoners. The Athenians being informed of what had taken place at Platææ, immediately sent thither both men and provisions. Two or three years after, the Lacedæmonians laid siege to Platææ, under the command of Archidamus, their king. He began by inclosing the city within a circumvallation formed of great trees, the branches of which were intertwined; then he erected a platform or cavalier to arrange his batteries on, in the hope of soon carrying the place, on account of the small number of the besieged. They were but four hundred, but all determined to die rather than submit to the law of a conqueror. When the Platæans saw the enormous lines begin to rise, they built up a wall of wood upon the top of the walls of the city opposite the platform, in order to maintain a superiority over the besiegers. The crevices in this wall were filled up with wood and bricks taken from the demolition of the neighbouring houses; then they mined the platform. The Lacedæmonians, perceiving this, abandoned that project, and contented themselves with constructing another rampart in the form of a crescent, to serve as a retreat when the first wall should be forced, and to oblige the enemy to undertake a second labour. The besiegers having set up their machines, gave a violent shock to the fortifications. The Platæans used every exertion to weaken the effect of these batteries: they broke the stroke of the ram with cords, which turned aside the blow by seizing the ram by the head and throwing it up by main strength. They made use, likewise, of another artifice,--fastening by the two ends a huge beam with long iron chains which were fixed to two large pieces of wood, which extended on one side and were supported upon the wall; when the machine began to play, they raised this beam, and letting it fall crosswise upon the point of the ram, it broke its