Note 253 — Chapter V · WAR AGAINST THE BELGÆ. (Year of Rome 697.) (Book II. of the “Commentaries.”)

The vineæ were small huts constructed of light timber work covered with hurdles and hides of animals. (Vegetius, Lib. IV. c. 16.) See the figures on Trajan column.

In a regular siege the vineæ were constructed out of reach of the missiles, and they were then pushed in file one behind the other up to the wall of the place attacked, a process which was termed agere vineas; they thus formed long covered galleries which, sometimes placed at right angles to the wall and sometimes parallel, performed the same part as the branches and parallels in modern sieges.