Ancient Siege Warfare Author:Paul Bentley Kern Ancient siege warfare was a form of total war that often ended in the sack of a city and the massacre or enslavement of entire populations. Leaders from Alexander the Great to Julius Caesar all commanded great sieges that ended in fearsome slaughters. The ancient Hebrew prophets and Greek poets described siege warfare as a world without limits o... more »r structure or morality, in which men violated deep-seated taboos about sex, pregnancy, and death. Here Paul Bentley Kern examines the reasons siege warfare could unleash such unrestrained violence--and why we today are reminded of our terrible vulnerability even in the age of modern war, when fortification and formal siege are thought to be long over.« less