the Peloponnese, and set to work constructing catapults and other engines, and preparing an earthwork from which he meant to attack the wall with them.  For these purposes he cut down the trees of the Academia and the Lyceum.  He was kept informed of intended sallies by two slaves inside the town, who threw out leaden balls with words cut on them.  But as fast as the earthwork rose Archelaus built towers on the walls opposite to it, and thence harassed the besiegers. [Sidenote:  Battle at the Piraeus.  Archelaus nearly taken.] He was also reinforced by Mithridates, and then came out and fought a battle which was for some time doubtful; but he was forced to retire at length with the loss of 2,000 men.  He himself remained till the last.  The gates were shut and he had to be drawn up by a rope over the wall.

[Sidenote:  Sulla’s difficulties.] The affairs of Sulla, however, were in no flourishing condition.  He had come to Greece with only 30,000 men, with no fleet, and little money.  He was forced to plunder the shrines of Epidaurus, Olympia, and Delphi.  His messenger to Delphi came back saying that he had heard the sound of a lute in the temple, and dared not commit the sacrilege.  But Sulla sent him back, saying that he was sure the sound was a note of welcome, and that the god meant him to have the treasure.  He promised to pay it back some day, and he kept his word, for he confiscated half the land of Thebes and applied the proceeds to reimbursing the sacred funds.  In his worst straits he was always ready with some such mockery. [Sidenote:  Sulla sends Lucullus to Egypt.] Winter was now at hand, and Sulla despatched Lucullus to Egypt to get ships.  The refusal of the King of Egypt shows what was now thought of the Roman power.  Sulla then formed a camp at Eleusis and continued the siege, and so shook the great tower of Archelaus by a simultaneous discharge of twelve leaden balls from his catapults that it had to be drawn back. [Sidenote:  Blockade of Athens.] By means of the two slaves he was also able to frustrate the attempts of Archelaus to throw supplies into Athens, which was now suffering from hunger, for Sulla had surrounded it with forts and turned the siege into a blockade.  Mithridates now sent his son into Macedonia with an army, before which the small Roman force there had to retire.  After this success the prince marched towards Athens, but died on the way. [Sidenote:  Desperate defence of the Piraeus.] At the Piraeus scenes occurred which were afterwards repeated at the siege of Jerusalem.  Archelaus undermined the earthwork and Sulla made another determined attempt to take the wall by storm.  He battered down part of it, fired the props of his mine and so brought down more, and sent troops by relays to escalade the breach.  But Archelaus, like the Plataeans in the Peloponnesian war, built an inner crescent-shaped wall, from which he took the assailants in front and on both flanks when they tried to advance. [Sidenote:  Sulla turns the siege into a blockade.] At last, wearied by this dogged resistance, Sulla turned the siege of the Piraeus also into a blockade, which meant simply that he hindered Archelaus from helping Athens, for he could not prevent the influx of supplies from the sea.