History of the Peloponnesian War

And anything done under the constraint of war and danger might reasonably meet with some indulgence, even from the god. For altars were a refuge in cases of involuntary misdeeds, and transgression was a term applied to those who do evil without compulsion and not to those who are driven by misfortunes to some act of daring.

Moreover, the Boeotians in presuming to give up the bodies of the dead in return for temples were impious in a much higher degree than they who refused by the exchange of temples to procure that which they had a right to recover.

And they bade the Boeotians plainly tell them they might take up their dead, not “on condition of quitting Boeotia”—for they were no longer in Boeotian territory, but in land which they had won by the spear,—but “on making a truce according to ancestral custom.”

The Boeotians made answer, if they were in Boeotia, they might carry off their dead on quitting their land; but if they were in their own territory, they could determine themselves what to do. For they thought that though Oropia, in which the bodies happened to be lying—for the battle occurred on the boundaries—belonged to the Athenians by right of its subjection, yet that they could not get possession of the bodies without their leave (nor indeed were they going to make a truce, forsooth, about territory belonging to the Athenians); but they thought it was fair to answer, “when they had quitted Boeotian territory they could get back what they asked for.” And the herald of the Athenians, on hearing this, went away without accomplishing his object.

The Boeotians sent off at once for darters and slingers from the Maliac Gulf, and with two thousand Corinthian hoplites, who reinforced them after the battle, as well as the Peloponnesian garrison which had evacuated Nisaea, and some Megarians also, made an expedition against Delium and attacked the fortification. After trying other forms of assault they took it by bringing up an engine made in the following manner.

Having sawed in two a great beam they hollowed it throughout, and fitted it together again nicely like a pipe; then they hung a cauldron at one end of it with chains, and into the cauldron an iron bellows-pipe was let down in a curve[*](ie. it was bent into the cauldron.) from the beam, which was itself in great part plated with iron.

This engine theybrought up from a distance on carts to the part of the wall where it was built chiefly of vines and wood; and when it was near, they inserted a large bellows into the end of the beam next to them and blew through it.

And the blast passing through the air-tight tube into the cauldron, which contained lighted coals, sulphur, and pitch, made a great blaze and set fire to the wall, so that no one could stay on it longer, but all left it and took to flight;

and in this way the fortification was taken. Of the garrison some were slain, and two hundred were captured; but most of the rest got on board their ships and were conveyed home.