As the curtain rises on the second act of Annie Vivanti's play, Le bocche inutili (The Useless Mouths) (1918), a British war captain shows his commander a graph that predicts when provisions in their village will be depleted. The captain then shows a second graph where supplies extend to a later date, which is only achievable if the city were to expel ‘useless mouths’, also called ‘superfluous beings – who don't know how to kill’. The hesitant commander enacts the plan, framing the expulsion of women, including his own wife and daughter, into enemy lines as his (rather than their) sacrifice. Knowing that there was no guarantee that the enemy would provide safe passage to these women and children, the commander fears the worst. He likens this event to one of Italy's darkest moments, asking if the practice isn't like ‘returning to the Middle Ages? To the Siege of Siena?’ (Act II, 114). For the commander, the Siege of Siena (January 1554–April 1555) is emblematic of the possible tragic result of sending ‘useless mouths’ outside protective walls. Over 4,000 ‘useless mouths’ were expelled from Siena, and among the many outcomes of those sent outside the city, thousands of adults and children died of starvation, trapped in the space between the enemy lines and the city gates shuttered behind them. The spectre of this horror reminds Vivanti's commander of the danger of the proposal, while the graphs depicting famine remind him of the stakes of not enacting it.