Siege

A siege (Latin: sedere, lit. 'to sit') is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecraft or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy.

Quotes

• Cum pressus ab hoste
  clauditur externis miles Romanus in oris,
  effugit exiguo nocturna pericula uallo,
  et subitus rapti munimine caespitis agger
  praebet securos intra tentoria somnos:
  tu tantum audito bellorum nomine, Roma,
  desereris; nox una tuis non credita muris.
  • When the Roman soldier is closely besieged by the foeman in a distant land, he defies the perils of the night behind a slender palisade; hastily he throws up the sods, and the protection of his mound lets him sleep untroubled in his tent. But Rome is abandoned as soon as the word "war" is heard; her walls are no safeguard for a single night.
  • Lucan, Pharsalia, I (AD 61–5), I, 514–20 (tr. J. D. Duff)

• To scale a castle-wall,
  Besiege a fort, to undermine a town,
  And make whole cities caper in the air.
  • Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine (1590), Part 2, III, ii

• The stress and strain of siege
  Prove the true metal and detect the base.
  But slur not Capua; for each counterfeit,
  Whose soul is in his purse, or in his mouth,
  We have a hundred hearts of steel, resolved
  To fire our temples, ere we yield our towers.
  We are in straits; but think ye that in Rome
  They walk on roses; where they melt their Gods
  In change for stores of rotten grain that sink
  In crazy vessels? In a mortal strife
  He wins who can endure to suffer most.
  • John Nichol, Hannibal (1873), III, xi

• Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall
  Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
  Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;
  Lances in ambush set.
  • Alfred Tennyson, A Dream of Fair Women (1842)

• Their targets in a tortoise cast, the foes,
  Secure advancing, to the turrets rose:
  Some mount the scaling-ladders; some, more bold,
  Swerve upwards, and by posts and pillars hold:
  Their left hand gripes their bucklers in the ascent,
  While with the right they seize the battlement.
  From the demolished towers, the Trojans throw
  Huge heaps of stones, that, falling, crush the foe:
  And heavy beams and rafters from the sides,
  (Such arms their last necessity provides!)
  And gilded roofs, come tumbling from on high,
  The marks of state, and ancient royalty.
  The guards below, fixed in the pass, attend
  The charge undaunted, and the gate defend.
  Renewed in courage with recovered breath,
  A second time we ran to tempt our death,
  To clear the palace from the foe, succeed
  The weary living, and revenge the dead.
  • Virgil, Aeneid, II, as translated by John Dryden (1697)

Metaphorical

• As when it happ’neth that some lovely towne,
  Unto a barbarous besieger falles,
  Who there by sword and flame himselfe enstalles,
  And, cruell, it in teares and blood doth drowne;
  Her beauty spoyl’d, her citizens made thralles,
  His spight yet so cannot her all throw downe,
  But that some statue, arch, phan of renowne
  Yet lurkes unmaym’d within her weeping walles:
  So, after all the spoile, disgrace, and wrake,
  That time, the world, and death could bring combin’d,
  Amidst that masse of ruines they did make,
  Safe and all scarre-lesse yet remaines my minde:
    From this so high transcending rapture springes,
    That I, all else defac’d, not envie kinges.
  • William Drummond, "Content and Resolute", in Flowres of Sion, 2nd ed. (1630)
  • Variants: "shamelesse" for "cruell" (l. 4)