one of the most considerable cities of ancient Epirus, situated on the river Arachthus, at a small distance from the sea. At first it was a free city; but was afterwards reduced by the Aetolian kings of Epirus, who chose it for the place of their residence. In process of time, the Aetolians made themselves masters of it, and held it till the year before Christ 189, when it fell into the hands of the Romans.

At this time Ambracia was a place of great strength. It was defended on one side by the river Arachthus, and on the other by steep and craggy hills; and surrounded with a high and thick wall, above three miles in compass. The Roman consul Fulvius began the siege by forming two camps, separated by the river, but with a communication between them; the Romans were posted in one, and the Epirots their allies in the other. He then threw up two lines, one of circumvallation, the other of contravallation; and built a wooden tower in form of a castle, over against the citadel, which stood on a hill. The Aetolians, however, before the lines were quite finished, found means to throw about 1000 men into the place.

The lines being completed, the city was attacked in five different places at once. The battering rams shook the walls on all sides: and the Romans, from their moveable towers, pulled down the battlements with a kind of scythes, which they fastened to long beams. The besieged made a vigorous defence. They were night and day on the walls, and indefatigable in preventing the effects of the rams and scythes. The strokes of the former they deadened, by letting down beams, large stones, lumps of lead, &c. by means of pulleys, upon them when they were in motion: the others they rendered useless, by pulling the beams to which they were fastened into the city with hooks contrived for the purpose.

While Fulvius was carrying on the siege, Nicander the Aetolian praetor, found means to throw 500 men into the city, under the command of one Nicodamus, with whom Nicander agreed to attack the Roman camp in the night time; not doubting, that, if the garrison from within, and the army from without, fell upon them at the same time, they would be obliged to raise the siege. Nicodamus narrowly watched the time at which he was ordered to fall; and though Nicander did not appear, marched out at the head of the garrison, armed with firebrands and torches. The Roman sentinels, surprized at this sight, ran to wake the legionaries, and soon spread a general alarm all over the camp. The legionaries marched in small bodies as they happened to meet, to repulse the enemy, whom they engaged in three different places. Two parties of the garrison were driven back; but the third, commanded