When reading through the Old Testament, a reader will come across the words “siege” and
“besiege.” The NIV Bible records these words 58 times. The context is almost always in reference
to warfare and the conquest of a city by an army. In reading the text of the Old Testament, it is
hard to accurately know what these words mean and how a city is conquered. The siege that comes
first to mind for Christians is Jericho. That particular incident was extraordinary and supernatural.
Not standard practice, but one of obedience. The verse with the most, but limited information
about siege is Ezekiel 26:7-12 (NIV) and reads as follows:
“For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: From the north I am going to bring
against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and
chariots, with horsemen and a great army. He will ravage your settlements on
the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a
ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows
of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his
weapons. His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your
walls will tremble at the noise of the warhorses, wagons and chariots when he
enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through.
The hooves of his horses will trample all your streets; he will kill your people
with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. They will plunder
your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and
demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the
sea.
I have decided to research the various techniques an army would use to
overcome a fortified city. Without getting into much detail, my intent is to list the few
techniques I have discovered. There are counter measures and defenses for each of
these techniques, but due to space limitations, I will only focus on the offensive
strategies. My focus will stay within the 8th through 4th century BC time frame.
The most humane way for an army to take a city and get the inhabitants to
surrender was to starve them. If their food and/or water source were outside the walls,
an army would surround a city and kill anyone who left for those provisions. This
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technique required many soldiers to wait around with little or nothing to do. If a city
had an internal source of water and a means of storing grains and meat, this technique
was futile or, at least, time consuming. When Cyrus came to Babylon, the enemy within
the wall laughed at Cyrus, believing they had enough provision for more than twenty
years.i
The next simplest technique for getting up and over a walled city was by way of
a ladder.ii Trees were felled and lashed together to construct a ladder tall enough to
reach the top of the wall. Scaling a ladder weakened the defenders abilities to protect
the city. Survivors made it past the wall and through to the inside of the gate. The then
opened gate would allow the attacking army to enter. The diversion of several ladders
allowed the attacking army to invade on multiple fronts.
Fire is an excellent weapon for destroying a city wall or gate. Flaming arrows
could stick to a wall and cause damage, but burned out quickly. City walls were made of
some sort of stone with wooden gates. Gates were the weakest point in a wall and
often easy to penetrate. Even bronze covered wooden gates were not impervious to
destruction.iii The Theban Army had a weapon called a Fire Raiser capable of burning
for extended periods of time at high temperatures.iv Not many gates withstood the
prolonged incineration without failing.
If going over a wall was difficult, human moles could dig under a wall.v Without
a firm foundation, the wall fell down, allowing the advancing army to march in. Or,
once the mole had passed the perimeter of the wall, that person dug up to the ground
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level allowing access. This technique was safe, slow, and limiting, but did allow an army
to enter the interior of a city.
Siege ramps were undoubtedly the most effective technique for getting into a
city. Soldiers constructed an inclined ramp made of logs, rocks, dirt, and sometimes
mortar.vi This ramp allowed soldiers to walk and fight their way to the top of a wall and
gain entrance to the city. This ramp could also be used to push wheeled carts, battering
rams, catapults, fire raisers, siege towers, and other weaponry to the top. Siege ramps
could be covered with a framework and animal hides to protect the people inside from
attack above.vii Ramps were as wide as needed to remain strong and equal to the wall
height. Battering rams were often the tool of choice for smashing at a stone wall until
the wall collapsed or an opening was created for the advancing army to enter. viii
General Cyrus had an interesting and creative invasion tactic.ix In 539 BC, the
Persian Army came upon Babylon. The city was large, its defenses stout, and its food
supply infinite. The Euphrates River provided Babylon with water and the city was
built so the river passed through it. In a moment of shear genius, Cyrus ordered a
trench the size of the river dug around the city. On a night when a festival took place
and the city inhabitants celebrated to inebriation, a dam was built, diverting the water
around Babylon. As the inhabitants lay asleep in a drunken stupor, the riverbed dried
up allowing the Persians to march in unabated. The Babylonian Army was unprepared
and helpless. As panic broke out in the city, Babylon fell to Cyrus and the Persians.
In conclusion, siege took place in several different forms. As walled cities were
better defended, siege techniques changed. Weaponry improved with time; armies used
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more metals and become increasingly creative. Because of the research and reading
done in preparation for this paper, I now have an understanding and deeper
appreciation of siege warfare when reading through the Bible. The struggle for power
causes people to behave abhorrently.
i
Xenophon, Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 6, 2:267, Cyropaedia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979).
Ericka Bleibtreu, “Five Ways to Conquer a City,” in Biblical Archeological Review 16/3 (1990), 36-44.
iii
Ibid.
iv
John Warry, Warfare in the Classical World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980),62-63.
v
Bleibtreu, BAR, 42.
vi
Gordon G. Garner, ed., “Siege Warfare in Bible Times,” Buried History 22/1 (1986): 4-13.
vii
Warry, Warfare, 48.
viii
Ibid, 63.
ix
Xenophon, Xenophon, 6,2:261-269.
ii
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