<head>Siege of Ambracia</head>The Aetolians, besieged in Ambracia by the Roman consul Marcus Fulvius, gallantly resisted the assaults of rams and other machines.
For the consul, after securing his camp, had begun siege operations on an extensive scale. He brought up three machines through the level country near the Pyrrheium at some distance from each other but advancing on parallel lines, a fourth at the Aesculapium and a fifth at the acropolis.
As the assault was vigorously conducted at one and the same time in all these places, the besieged were terrified by the prospect of what awaited them.
While the rams continued to batter the walls and the long sickle-shaped grapplers to drag down the battlements, the defenders of the city made efforts to counter-engineer them, dropping by means of cranes leaden weights, stones, and stumps of trees on to the rams and after catching the sickles with iron anchors dragging them inside the wall, so that the pole of the apparatus was smashed against the battlement and the sickle itself remained in their hands.
They also made frequent sallies, sometimes attacking by night those who slept on the machines, and sometimes openly attempting in daylight to dislodge the day shift, thus impeding the progress of the siege.
Nicander, who was hovering round outside the Roman lines, had sent five hundred horse to the town, who forced an entrance by breaking through the entrenchments of the enemy.
He had ordered them on a day agreed upon to make a sortie and attack the Roman works, engaging to come to their assistance . . .
But although they made a gallant dash out of the city and fought bravely, the plan failed because Nicander failed to appear, either because he was afraid of the risk, or because he thought the task on which he was actually occupied more urgent.
Walbank Commentary