Fire in the East

'And let them, when besieging a fortress, strive to win over whomsoever possible of those inside the fortress and the city, in order to attain through them two things: one – the drawing out of their secrets, and the other – intimidating and frightening them through themselves. And [let] a man be sent by underhand means who should unsettle their minds, and deprive them of any hope for succour, and who should tell them, that their sly secret is unravelled, and that tales are told about their fortress, and that fingers are pointed at their fortified and weak places and at the places against which battering-rams will be directed, and at the places where mines will be conducted, and at the places where ladders will be placed, and at the places where the walls will be ascended, and at the places where fire will be set – in order that all these should fill them with terror…'

- Fragment from the Sassanid Book of Ayin; translation James [2004], 31