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The phrase has become so popular that a superior fleet has been widely accepted as a talisman in war. The idea is that a nation with sea power must win. But with all the tremendous "influence of sea power on history," the student must not be misled into thinking that sea power is invincible. The Athenian navy went to ruin under the catapults of Syracuse whose navy was insignificant.
While Philippus was showing the guests how safely the archers and slingers could be concealed behind the walls and battlements and discharge their missiles, and explaining the purpose of the great catapults on the outermost dike washed by the sea, the artist was listening to the ever-increasing roar of the waves which poured into the harbour from the open sea, to their loud dashing against the strong mole, to the shrill scream of the sea gulls, the flapping of the sails, which were being taken in everywhere in short, to all the sounds occasioned by the rising violence of the wind.
The siege of Nice was the first exploit in which the crusading armies were engaged. During these six weeks the slaughter of the Christians, by the arrows of the Turkish garrison, and by the bolts and large stones which they discharged from mangonels and catapults, was immense.
They demolished their own battlements; portions of wall fell down raising a great dust; and as the catapults on the terrace were shooting over against one another, the stones would strike together and shiver into a thousand pieces, making a copious shower upon the combatants.
One ship became entangled with another, planks and poles shattered with a loud crash. Shouts, the cries and moans of the combatants and the wounded, mingled with the thunder of the stones hurled by the catapults, and the sharp notes of the signals which sounded like calls for help. Two soldiers, stricken by arrows, fell beside me. It was horrible!
The air darkened as if night was falling at this noontide hour, and with savage fury the foaming mountain waves rushed like mad wild beasts in fierce assault upon the mole, the walls, and the dikes of the fortified port. "Home!" cried Thyone, and again entered the litter which she had left to inspect the new catapults.
When, however, he arrived before the city the walls and the catapults made him hesitate, and he entered into negotiations, which, as usual, petered out and brought him no adequate reward for all his hopes and preparations. In the west his arms were more successful, and he subjected most of the eastern part of Serbia to his rule.
Though my catapults were officially confiscated, I knew the drawer in which they were incarcerated, and where the key of it was hidden, and I could make life a burden, if I chose, to every living thing within a square-mile radius, so long as the catapult was restored to its drawer in due and decent time. But I wondered how the others were taking it. The edict hit them more severely.
The stones from the catapults, and the demolitions commanded for purposes of defence, had accumulated heaps of ruins in the middle of the streets. At the quietest times masses of people would suddenly rush along with shouts; and from the top of the Acropolis the conflagrations were like purple rags scattered upon the terraces and twisted by the wind.
She ruled over three hundred Libyan cities, and had a population of seven hundred thousand. She had accumulated two hundred thousand stand of arms, and two thousand catapults. And she had the means to manufacture a still greater amount. But she had, unfortunately, on the first demand of the Romans, surrendered these means of defense.
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