The Siege of Ambracia
Romes War Beneath the Earth
In 189 BC, the Roman Republic laid siege to the city of Ambracia, capital of the Aetolian League, during Rome’s final push to dominate Greece. What followed was not a dramatic storming of walls or a single decisive battle, but a tense, grinding contest fought largely out of sight—beneath the ground. The siege of Ambracia became one of the clearest early examples of systematic underground warfare in the ancient world.
Ambracia was strongly fortified and well supplied. Roman commander Marcus Fulvius Nobilior quickly realised that a direct assault would be costly. Instead, Roman engineers began digging mining tunnels beneath the city’s walls, aiming to collapse the foundations and create breaches. This method, already known in Hellenistic warfare, was refined here with unusual intensity. The defenders soon detected the Roman
mines. Listening posts were established inside the city, where Ambracian soldiers placed bronze vessels against the ground to catch the faint vibrations of digging. Once the direction of Roman tunnels was identified, the defenders began counter-mining, digging their own tunnels to intercept the attackers underground. When these tunnels met, the fighting became savage and intimate. Ancient sources describe hand-to-hand combat in total darkness, with swords, spears, and shields colliding in cramped spaces where formation was impossible. Smoke, dust, and panic added to the chaos. In some tunnels, Ambracian defenders used fire and choking fumes to force Roman miners to retreat, igniting combustible materials to suffocate those below. Above ground, the siege dragged on with no clear breakthrough. Roman siege engines battered the walls, while the defenders repaired damage as quickly as it appeared. The underground war became the decisive theater, exhausting both sides. The Romans possessed superior engineering resources, but the Ambracians showed remarkable resilience and technical sophistication for a Greek city under siege.
Despite Rome’s relentless pressure, Ambracia did not fall by force. Instead, the siege ended through negotiation. The city agreed to surrender under relatively moderate terms, avoiding mass slaughter or destruction. For Rome, the outcome was strategically successful: the Aetolian League was broken, and Roman authority in Greece became effectively uncontested.
Historically, the siege of Ambracia is significant not for its political consequences alone, but for what it reveals about ancient warfare’s unseen dimensions. It demonstrates that by the early second century BC, war was no longer confined to open battlefields and city walls. Engineering skill, psychological endurance, and the ability to fight in claustrophobic darkness had become decisive factors.
The Romans would refine these techniques in later sieges across the Mediterranean. At Ambracia, they proved that victory could be won not by heroic charges—but by patience, precision, and war fought beneath the earth itself.