Note 81 — Chapter I · CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE SIXTH CENTURY[3]

Dionysius caused the Syracusans to build the wall of Epipolae, of about the same length, in twenty days (Diod. Sic., xiv, 18). The Peloponnesians built a wall across the isthmus against Xerxes in a short time (Herodotus, viii, 71, etc.). There was much extemporary wall-building at Syracuse during the siege by Nicias (Thucydides, vi, 97, etc.). The wall of Crassus against Spartacus was nearly forty miles long (Plutarch, Crassus). Except the first, however, these were more or less temporary structures. Very substantial extempore walls are frequently mentioned by both Greek and Latin historians as having been erected during sieges, etc. See especially Caesar (i, 8) and Thucydides (iii, 21, Siege of Plataea).