Murum aries attigit - 'The ram has touched the wall'

Murum aries attigit is Latin for 'the ram has touched the wall.' It refers to a strict Roman military ultimatum: once a battering ram made contact with a city's fortifications, the offer of surrender and mercy was revoked, and the city would be sacked.

The ram touching the wall referred to the battering ram in an assault. The Roman battering ram (or aries) was a massive siege engine used to breach fortress walls and gates. It featured a heavy timber beam with a reinforced metal tip, suspended on ropes inside a mobile wooden shelter called a testudo ("tortoise") Romans held that once an assault had begun, no mercy or quarter would be given.

When a city resisted a Roman siege and was breached, standard protocol was complete devastation. Soldiers were frequently ordered to kill every living thing they encountered until the commander gave the signal to stop, at which point the survivors were enslaved as war booty.

The term "missio" refers to the sign that a gladiator may give when they cede a fight to their opponent. It serves as both an acknowledgement of defeat and a plea for mercy.

The loser asks the munerarius to stop the fight and send him alive (missus) from the arena. If he had not fallen he could be "sent away standing" (stans missus). The editor took the crowd's response into consideration in deciding whether to let the loser live. "Without missio" was a fight with no possibility of a reprieve for the loser.