After they had dismissed all useless mouths from the city, they found their force to consist of six thousand citizens and a thousand strangers. All slaves who should distinguish themselves were promised the rights of denizens, the public paying their masters the full value for them. It was likewise publicly declared that all who lost their lives in action should be honourably interred; that their parents, wives, and children should be provided for, and their daughters portioned in marriage; and that when their sons should be of an age capable of bearing arms, they should be presented with a complete suit of armour, on the public theatre, at the great solemnity of the Bacchanalia. This decree inspired all ranks, particularly the wealthy and the makers of war-machines, with incredible zeal. The besieged sent out three good sailers against a small fleet of sutlers and merchants, laden with provisions for the enemy; they sunk some vessels, burnt others, and carried all prisoners likely to pay a ransom into the city. The Rhodians gained a great deal of money by this, the stipulated prices of prisoners being high. This siege is said to be the masterpiece of Demetrius, both as to the use of acquired skill and invention. To make himself master of the port and of the towers which defended its entrance, he began his operations by sea. To facilitate his approach to the place he meant to batter, he caused two tortoises to be erected on two flat-bottomed vessels joined together. One of these was more solid and strong than the other, in order to cover the men from the enormous masses which the enemy discharged from their catapultas on the walls: the other was of a lighter structure, and intended to shield the soldiers from the flights of arrows and darts. Two towers of four stories each were erected at the same time, which exceeded in height the towers which defended the entrance to the port, and which were intended to be used in battering the latter with volleys of stones and darts. Each of these towers was placed upon ships strongly bound together. Demetrius likewise caused a kind of floating barricado to be erected in front of these tortoises and towers, on a long beam of timber, four feet thick, through which stakes, armed at the end with large spikes of iron, were driven. These stakes were disposed horizontally, with their spikes projecting forward, in order to prevent the vessels of the port from shattering the work with their beaks. He likewise selected some of his largest vessels, on the sides of which he erected a rampart of planks, with little windows easy to be opened. He there placed the best Cretan archers and slingers in his army, and furnished them with an infinite number of bows, small balistas or cross-bows, slings and catapultas, with other engines for shooting, in order to gall the workmen of the city employed in raising and repairing the walls of the port.