covered entrenchments, and towers around the palace quarter. To gain ground along the heavily defended city blocks, the Roman troops employed a surprisingly modern technique of urban warfare. Instead of assaulting a house through the well-guarded doors, they used battering rams to break through the walls from connecting homes. Roman troops would then pour into the gap, kill the defenders, and repeat the procedure to take the next house. Caesar also demolished countless buildings to create a deadly no-man’s-land around his perimeter. He
