[Red Badger]

Filling it back up would have been a pain..................

[Does so]

No mention from where the necessary water was sourced.

(Although it is a formidable-enough defense without water...)

[Tell It Right]

Good point. Especially given that 9th century BC would have been during the Greek Dark Age cooling period. If that was anything like the two more recent cooling periods, then among other problems it had less predictable rain patterns. The Dark Age and Little Ice Age cooling periods often had droughts followed by gully washers.