SCALING LADDER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Scaling ladder

... troops; and in order to prevent those mutinies which were ready to break out every moment, and which their affection alone for him had hitherto restrained, he led them to Rome, and promised to enrich them by the plunder of that opulent city. He was himself killed, as he was planting a scaling ladder against the walls; but his soldiers, rather enraged than discouraged by his death, mounted to the assault with the utmost valor, and entering the city sword in hand, exercised all those brutalities which may be expected from ferocity excited by resistance, and from insolence ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume