There was no answer, just silence from the faces on the wall, and no arrow or bolt came to show defiance. Yet nor was there any sign of capitulation, as the siege tower trundled slowly around the southern side of the city.

‘They’re not about to give in,’ Arrian said to Ferox as they watched men unhitching the teams pulling it. The tower was as close to the foot of the ramp as it was safe to bring it without risking the defenders shooting at the oxen, which might cause a stampede and risk overturning it after all this labour. ‘They’re proud, and proud men often refuse to see a fact they do not like even when it stands before them.’

‘Bit surprised the princess did not appeal in person,’ Ferox said quietly.

Arrian’s face betrayed no surprise that the centurion knew of Azátē’s presence. ‘She wouldn’t. And the legatus would not let her anyway. Says he wants to hold her back and make one last roll of the die – maybe when we have a breach.’

‘That bit about the ram touching the wall and ancient tradition, is that true?’ Ferox had a dim memory of reading something in Caesar’s Commentarii, but he had been in a fair few sieges during his time in the army and never remembered hearing about such a law or even a custom.

Arrian shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Pretty sure I read it somewhere or other. Seemed like a nice touch though, and might help concentrate their minds.’

Ferox said nothing, for the love Romans and Greeks had for rhetoric and argument still seemed strange to him after all these years. It was a greedy, possessive love, making words and ideas serve the need of the moment regardless of truth. The bards of his people told many lies, as what bards did not? Yet they had a joy in the words and verses themselves and their themes were brave heroes and beautiful women, battles and feasts. They loved life and honoured death more than they loved their own cleverness.

Rufus was shouting to men as they looped cables through the first of a series of pulleys designed so that they could haul the tower up the slope while other teams pushed. They were not far from where Ferox and his thin line had faced the attackers, yet no shot or arrow came from the wall and towers above, and he wondered for a moment whether the Nicopolitans were considering giving in. If so, then they were leaving it very late. More probably they wanted the targets to come closer before they began their bombardment. Either side of the ramp, and on platforms raised beside it, Roman crews waited beside their large and small ballistae. There were a couple of scorpiones on the central floor of the siege tower itself and auxiliary archers on the open top, but none were shooting. Instead, everyone waited and watched.

The ropes were in place and the teams began to haul, stretching the cables taut until the tower gave the slightest of quivers and then began to inch forward, until the wheels turned readily as it went over the flat ground before the slope began. Someone had thought to oil the wheels, so that they made no noise, and that was a pleasant change, because the transport drivers always swore blind that the creaks and squeals of unoiled axles frightened away evil forces. The tower reached the incline of the ramp, hesitated and began to creep up the slope, ever so slowly.