and guarded
against it. On account of this Chosroes, boiling with anger, decided to
storm the wall.

On the following day, accordingly, he led up all the Persians against
the wall and commanded a portion of the army to make assaults at
different points along the river, and he himself with the most of the
men and best troops directed an attack against the height. For at this
place, as has been stated by me above, the wall of fortification was
most vulnerable. Thereupon the Romans, since the structure on which they
were to stand when fighting was very narrow, devised the following
remedy. Binding together long timbers they suspended them between the
towers, and in this way they made these spaces much broader, in order
that still more men might be able to ward off the assailants from there.
So the Persians, pressing on most vigorously from all sides, were
sending their arrows thickly everywhere, and especially along the crest
of the hill. Meanwhile the Romans were fighting them back with all their
strength, not soldiers alone, but also many of the most courageous
youths of the populace. But it appeared that those who were attacking
the wall there were engaged in a battle on even terms with their enemy.
For the rock which was broad and high and, as it were, drawn up against
the fortifications caused the conflict to be just as if on level ground.
And if anyone of the Roman army had had the courage to get outside the
fortifications with three hundred men and to anticipate the enemy in
seizing this rock and to ward off the assailants from there, never, I
believe, would the city have come into any danger from the enemy. For
the barbarians had no point from which they could have conducted their
assault, for they would be exposed to missiles from above both from the
rock and from the wall; but as it was (for it was fated that Antioch be
destroyed by this army of the Medes), this idea occurred to no one. So
then while the Persians were fighting beyond their power, since Chosroes
was present with them and urging them on with a mighty cry, giving their
opponents not a moment in which to look about or guard against the
missiles discharged from their bows, and while the Romans, in great
numbers and with much shouting, were defending themselves still more
vigorously, the ropes with which the beams had been bound together,
failing to support the weight, suddenly broke asunder and the timbers
together with all those who had taken their s