[1] After this, Antigonus built a wall round Nora, left troops to guard it, and retired; Eumenes, however, although closely besieged in a stronghold which had grain, water in abundance, and salt, but no other edible, not even a relish to go with the grain, nevertheless, with what he had, managed to render the life of his associates cheerful, inviting them all by turns to his own table, and seasoning the meal thus shared with conversation which had charm and friendliness.
[2] For he had a pleasant face, not like that of a war-worn veteran, but delicate and youthful, and all his body had, as it were, artistic proportions, with limbs of astonishing symmetry; and though he was not a powerful speaker, still he was insinuating and persuasive, as one may gather from his letters.
[3]
But most of all detrimental to his forces thus besieged was their narrow quarters, since their movements were confined to small houses and a place only two furlongs in circumference, so that neither men nor horses could get exercise before eating or being fed. Therefore, wishing to remove the weakness and languor with which their inactivity afflicted them, and, more than that, to have them somehow or other in training for flight, if opportunity should offer,
But most of all detrimental to his forces thus besieged was their narrow quarters, since their movements were confined to small houses and a place only two furlongs in circumference, so that neither men nor horses could get exercise before eating or being fed. Therefore, wishing to remove the weakness and languor with which their inactivity afflicted them, and, more than that, to have them somehow or other in training for flight, if opportunity should offer,
[4] he assigned the men a house, the largest in the place, fourteen cubits long, as a place to walk, ordering them little by little to increase their pace. And as for the horses, he had them all girt round the neck with great straps fastened to the roof, and raised them partly up into the air by means of pulleys, so that, while with their hind legs they rested firmly upon the ground, they just touched it with the tips of their fore hoofs.
[5] Then, while they were thus suspended, the grooms would stand at their sides and stir them up with shouts and strokes of the goad; and the horses, full of rage and fury, would dance and leap about on their hind legs, while with their swinging fore feet they would strike the ground and try to get a footing there, thus exerting their whole bodies and covering themselves with sweat and foam,—no bad exercise either for speed or strength.
1
Then their barley would be thrown to them boiled, that they might the sooner dispatch and the better digest it.
Eumenes. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1919.
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