Up these streets the Romans had to force their way. Almost every house was a fortress which had to be separately attacked and separately taken. The first danger that had to be encountered was a shower of tiles and bricks from the roofs and upper stories. These missiles, heavy themselves, and falling with tremendous force from the lofty buildings, would have been terribly destructive, had not the assailants protected themselves by the formation of the _testudo_ or tortoise. This was made by the men ranging their shields over their heads in a close impenetrable array, under cover of which they broke down the doors of house after house. Sometimes even the _testudo_ reeled under the shock of some more than usually heavy mass; more than once it was actually broken when the defending party contrived to detach and send down upon it the whole of a parapet. Whenever this happened no small loss of life was the result.
When an entrance had been forced into the house, every storey became the scene of a fresh conflict. Driven at last to the roof, the defenders would sometimes prefer to hurl themselves down to the street below rather than fall into the hands of the enemy. Some would take a desperate leap across the space that separated them from the houses opposite; others crossed on bridges of planks or doors which they hastily made, or, in some cases, had prepared in anticipation.
It is needless to say that a conflict of such a kind was fought with the greatest ferocity. It was a struggle, for the most part, between a people and an army. The inhabitants, seldom, if ever, protected by armour, and furnished with the weapons that chance supplied, often, indeed, reduced to nothing more effective than sticks or household implements, fought desperately against well-protected, well-armed, well-disciplined men. The women were even more frenzied than the men. Driven to bay, they flew like wild-cats at the Romans, and bit and scratched till they were slain or disabled. There was no question of quarter; it was not even asked. The assailants, as they slowly advanced, winning their way yard by yard, left a lifeless desolation behind them, with the dead lying as they had fallen, on every staircase and in every chamber.