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[[underlined]] Chapter V. [[/underlined]]       90.

least 15 feet above the surface of the soil; and it extended back from the rear or inner face of the parapet for something like 300 feet.  It seemed further, as we just saw, to have had buildings of some kind erected upon it.  Its purpose therefore can not have been merely that of affording a clear space where troops might be held in reserve and moved about as need arose.  The tremendous additional labor and expense entailed in so greatly augmenting the bulk of the [[underlined]] agger [[/underlined]] as a whole can only have been incurred for the sake of providing added protection against some very real and compelling danger.  This can hardly have been anything else than fear of the effects of mines.

[[underlined]] Siegecraft in Ancient China. [[/underlined]]
During the Eastern Chou period (770-255 B.C.), and especially in that part of it commonly called the "Epoch of the Contending States", the arts of war and notably those of siegecraft had made great progress.  Particularly had th[[overwritten]] u [[/overwritten]]^[[i]]s been true of the use of mines.  These had been employed for two purposes; the one, to gain direct access to the interiors of beleaguered towns, the other, to overthrow their ramparts and so effect a practicable breach for a storming-party.  The latter aim the Chinese military engineers of that day accomplished not by the aid of explosives, as in later times, but by tunneling beneath the earthen walls and there excavating a large chamber whose ceiling they supported, while its construction was in progress, by means of stout timbering; the latter they then set on fire, and when it had burned nearly through, the section of rampart immediately above it dropped into the cavity.
This method was well known in the contemporary West also; it was employed, for instance, at the siege of Megalopolis by Polyperchon [[superscript]] (62) [[/superscript]] in 
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[[superscript]] (62) [[/superscript]] Formerly miscalled "Polysperchon".
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