Besieged!

Warning, there are plenty of spoilers ahead!

I began reading Jerusalem, a biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore a short while ago and was taken aback by the detailed account, coming from Jewish historian Josephus, who witnessed the event, of the siege and fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 A.D.  Josephus recounts the horror in vivid detail, including this part that comes after several skirmishes causes the Jewish defenders to fall back into a second walled area of the city:

THUS the fight continued for three days, till Titus a second time entered the wall. He threw down all the northern part and strongly garrisoned the towers of the south. The strong heights of Sion, the citadel of the Antonia, and the fortified Temple still held out. Titus, eager to save so magnificent a place, resolved to refrain for a few days from the attack, in order that the minds of the besieged might be affected by their woes, and that the slow results of famine might operate. He reviewed his army in full armour, and they received their pay in view of the city, the battlements being thronged by spectators during this splendid defiling, who looked on in terror and dismay. 

The famine increased, and the misery of the weaker was aggravated by seeing the stronger obtaining food. All natural affection was extinguished, husbands and wives, parents and children snatching the last morsel from each other. Many wretched men were caught by the Romans prowling in the ravines by night to pick up food and these were scourged, tortured and crucified. This was done to terrify the rest, and it went on till there was not wood enough for crosses. 

Terrible crimes were committed in the city. The aged high-priest, Matthias, was accused of holding communication with the enemy. Three of his sons were killed in his presence, and he was executed in sight of the Romans, together with sixteen other members of the sanhedrin. The famine grew so woeful that a woman devoured the body of her own child. 

From Wikipedia - Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem,Francesco Hayez, oil on canvas, 1867. Depicting the destruction and looting of the Second Temple by the Roman army.

What happened in Jerusalem is not unusual in sieges.  The siege became a tried and true tactic of warfare for centuries because it worked on so many levels.  First, the besieging army, if lucky, would arrive at a cities gates with little notice and less time for preparation by the luckless inhabits.  Encircling the city, the army on the outside would cut off all egress and communication coming in and out of the settlement.  Then, depending on the temperament of the commander and his orders, the invaders would either demand immediate surrender, and if that failed or the army was feeling particularly hostile, a long period of waiting would ensure.

Think of the psychological toll, as Josephus alludes to, that such a tactic takes on the those trapped within walls, which had once seemed a strong and comforting embrace, but that would now, with each passing day, come to resemble a tomb.  The inhabitants would daily watch the construction of enormous siege engines being built, and/or the slow, elaborate digging of tunnels to allow attackers to approach the walls unmolested by the defenders arrows, and in later centuries, bullets.  The residents of the hapless town would also be aware of the dwindling food stores, and many would resort to desecrations such as those Josephus describes.  As the character Roberto della Griva in Umberto Eco's novel, The Island of the Day Before, puts it:

We must keep them within range on the
plain, in order to harass them and impede the
construction of the tunnels. In short, there will be glory
for all. Now let us go to supper. The siege has only
begun and provisions are still plentiful. It will be awhile
before we start eating the rats.

There are only three ways to end a siege: repulse the invaders, surrender, or receive outside help.  Somehow overcoming the opposing force is extremely unlikely, since simple patience will eventually break the will of the besieged defenders.  Otherwise - SPOILER - The latter looked like this as Gandalf led the charge to break the siege of  Helm's Deep in The Two Towers:

If outside help is not a possibility, defense or surrender are the only options, for when the siege ends and the attack aimed at breaching the defense begins, things only get worse.  Shakespeare's Henry V, in the form of Kenneth Braungh, gives the citizens of Harfleur a warning of what is to come:

Traditionally, the invaders, once through the walls and into the city, were given free reign to do as they pleased.  What pleased them, after weeks, months, even years of siege (ten years in the case of Troy, according to the Iliad) is a complete catalog of horror. The cathartic release of pent up fear and hostility generally resulted in stealing everything of even negligible value - a given.  Raping women, children, and even men was an expected occurrence , followed by the brutal murder of the victims, or their sale into slavery, as Hecuba states in Euripides' play The Trojan Women:

Ah, woe is me! This surely is the last, the utmost limit this, of all my sorrows; forth from my land I go; my city is ablaze with flame. Yet, thou aged foot, make one painful struggle to hasten, that I may say a farewell to this wretched town. O Troy, that erst hadst such a grand career amongst barbarian towns, soon wilt thou be reft of that splendid name. Lo! they are burning thee, and leading us e'en now from our land to slavery. Great gods! Yet why call on the gods? They did not hearken e'en aforetime to our call. Come, let us rush into the flames, for to die with my country in its blazing ruin were a noble death for me.

Katherine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave starred in an excellent 1971 film of the play.

As King Henry said, there was no way to control the rampage, even if any commander were so inclined. Then, if the attackers weren't planning to use the town as residence or dwelling, but rather planned to move on to the next unfortunate settlement, then the homes and buildings were set on fire.

Surrender, until more recent times, was not much better.  All of the above was still possible - there were few guarantees of safety, and those often empty words.  Occasionally, the victorious force would show mercy, such as Saladin's treatment of the surrendering force in Jerusalem - one of the more historically-accurate parts of the film The Kingdom of Heaven:

Usually, all of the available choices were terrible, and remain so to this day. Times have changed, bullets have taken the place of arrows, and rockets that of trebuchets.  Recent events in Syria and the Ukraine, Israel and Palestine show sieges still occur, and human cruelty is still loose in the world.  Methods have changed over time, but until the human heart changes, the innocent will continue to suffer, for once some modern version of  horsemen and flags appear on the horizon, disaster surely follows.