Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

30 SIEGE OF TROY.no tents, but camped in the open, building huts if long inone place. At Troy the Greek camp had a broad and deepditch, jDalisades, or a wall made of the earth thrown up fromthe ditch, and wooden towers on the wall. Behind this thearmy camped in huts.Fortification had advanced but little beyond the roughestwork. The art of sieges was all but unknown. The tenyears' blockade of Troy amply showsthe latter fact, as the constant fightingoutside the to\vn j^roves that littlereliance was placed on the valueof its walls by the Trojans. TheGreeks did not surround the city,but sat down on the sea-coast beforeit and blockaded it, some hundredthousand strong. Troy wasable to ration itself from the MountIda region. The Greeks.MP^lE^ were sadly put to it forvictuals, and were compelledto detail half theTo MrSiege of Troy.army to the Chersonesusin order to raise breadstuffs. For nine years there wasnaught but insignificant small-war.After the Greeks had wasted their time in isolated attackson the Trojan territory until both sides were well-nigh exhausted,Nestor counseled concentration and the division ofthe army into bodies by race and families, in order to producea spirit of rivalry and due ambition. It is evident thatthe troops knew how to deploy, for they filed out of the gatesof their camps and then formed line of battle. The armyhad a right, centre and left. The infantry stood in severalranks, — in front the least brave, in the rear the most brave,