Polybius, Histories

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Antiochus Reaches Tambrax

Thus Antiochus effected this ascent without loss, but

The battle on the summit of Mount Labus.

slowly and painfully, for it was not until the eighth day that his army made the summit of Labus. The barbarians being mustered there, and resolved to dispute his passage, a severe engagement took place, in which the barbarians were eventually dislodged, and by the following manœuvre. As long as they were engaged face to face with the phalanx, they kept well together and fought desperately; but before daybreak the light-armed troops had made a wide circuit, and seized some high ground on the rear of the enemy, and as soon as the barbarians perceived this they fled in a panic. King Antiochus exerted himself actively to prevent a pursuit, and caused a recall to be sounded, because he wished his men to make the descent into Hyrcania, without scattering, and in close order.

He reaches Tambrax.

He accomplished his object: reached Tambrax, an unwalled city of great size and containing a royal palace, and there encamped.

Capture of Sirynx.

Most of the natives fled from the battle-field, and its immediate neighbourhood, into a city called Sirynx, which was not far from Tambrax, and from its secure and convenient situation was considered as the capital of Hyrcania. Antiochus therefore determined to carry this town by assault; and having accordingly advanced thither, and pitched his camp under its walls, he commenced the assault. The operation consisted chiefly of mining under pent-houses. For the city was defended by three trenches, thirty cubits broad and fifteen deep, with a double vallum on the edge of each; and behind these there was a strong wall. Frequent struggles took place at the works, in which neither side were strong enough to carry off their killed and wounded: for these hand-to-hand battles took place, not above ground only, but underground also in the mines. However, owing to the numbers employed and the activity of the king, it was not long before the trenches were choked up and the walls were undermined and fell. Upon this the barbarians, giving up all as lost, put to death such Greeks as were in the town; and having plundered all that was most worth taking, made off under cover of night. When the king saw this, he despatched Hyperbasus with the mercenaries; upon whose approach the barbarians threw down their booty and fled back again into the city; and when they found the peltasts pouring in energetically through the breach in the walls they gave up in despair and surrendered.