It had to be' brought very close to the walls in order to be effective--a position which gave the besieged an opportunity of assailing it by fire.

Perhaps it was this liability which caused the infrequent use of the engine in question, which is rare upon the earlier, and absent from the later, sculptures.
The third mode of attack employed by the Assyrians in their sieges of fortified places was the mine.

While the engines were in full play, and the troops drawn up around the place assailed the defenders of the walls with their slings and bows, warriors, singly, or in twos and threes, advanced stealthily to the foot of the ramparts, and either with their swords and the points of their spears, or with implements better suited for the purpose, such as crowbars and pickaxes, attacked the foundations of the walls, endeavoring to remove the stones one by one, and so to force an entrance.

While thus employed, the assailant commonly either held his shield above him as a protection or was guarded by the shield of a comrade; or, finally, if he carried the curved _gerrhon_, leant it against the wall, and then placed himself under its shelter.

[PLATE CX., Fig.