Did Ancients Sap?

[Simetrical]

In RTW, there's an option to build sap points in assaults. Did Romans and their contemporaries actually sap? Wikipedia's article on sapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapping) didn't mention any pre-medieval sapping, and a cursory Google for "Roman sapping" mostly turned up pages on RTW. This leads me to suspect that sapping was not, in fact, a tactic used before the Middle Ages. Is this correct? If so, why?

-Simetrical

[Rosacrux redux]

Sapping has been used in several sieges during the ancient times, although I don't remember any right now.

It wasn't as effective as in medieval times, but I think this had more to do with the ways warfare has been conducted during these times and the fact that siegecraft along with metallurgy were the only technologies that actually evolved (instead of devolved) during the medieval times.

[conon394]

Yes
Check out "HOW TO SURVIVE UNDER SIEGE" Aeneas Tacticus.
Aeneas (4th century BC) describes how to defend against sapping attacks.
Also, I am rather sure there is a description in Appain(?) of sapping and counter-sapping during Sulla's siege of Athens

http://www.pickabook.co.uk/details/1853996270/display.html

[Red Harvest]

Even more ancient cities had various features in their wall architecture to prevent successful sapping. I just read about one today (can't remember which) dating back to 1200 B.C. or before that had stone walls with clay slopes below to widen them and make them less vulnerable to sapping. I think it was in Canaan but it might have been in an adjacent region.

[Aurelian]

Yes, the ancients knew how to sap.

From Polybius:


"Having now made his arrangements for the siege, and having got his catapults and ballistae in position to annoy the defenders on the walls, the king harangued his Macedonian troops, and, bringing his siege-machines up to the walls, began under their protection to sink mines. The Macedonians worked with such enthusiastic eagerness that in a short time two hundred feet of the wall were undermined and underpinned: and the king then approached the walls and invited the citizens to come to terms. Upon their refusal, he set fire to the props, and thus brought down the whole part of the wall that rested upon them simultaneously."

Histories of Polybius - Book Five (http://www.yorku.ca/inpar/polybius_five.pdf )

Ammianus Marcellinus described the siege of Dura, and that included sapping by the Persians. When the city was excavated in the early 20th century, I believe they found crushed armored Persians and defenders who had been fighting under a tower when it collapsed.

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. I'd do a Google search for "undermined walls" or "siege collapsed wall" or something like that.

[Red Harvest]

The Assyrians were quite good at siege warfare, probably the best of their day. The Assyrian reliefs show undermining as early as 9th century B.C. After the Assyrian empire crumbled in 612 B.C. the art was in a state of decline. Around the 5th century B.C. Syracuse began to revive siege technology and eclipsed prior art in the 4th century B.C.

[Watchman]

Back in the day it used to be that any semi-decent wall was pretty much an impassable obstacle for the attacker. That's one reason the warring between the Greek city-states was as quirky as it was. Originally about the two sole methods of dealing with them was sitting around the fortress until it ran out of food (which didn't happen all that often), or throwing up a siege-mound - essentially piling up a big earthern ramp against the wall so you could get the troops over it. The Romans did that every now and then too (for example at Jerusalem), but on the average it took an empire or a full-time army to muster the time and workforce to get one done.

Ladders were undoubtly known, but for one reason or another (likely archery) apparently didn't work that well.

Then some clever bunch (possibly the Assyrians, who were both very warlike and very inventive) came up with various methods of collapsing the walls, including sapping...