Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/233

 STRATAGEMS, II. ix. 8-x. i

confronting them on the walls, straightway turned their vessels about and laid their course for Asia.^

When the fleet of the Megarians approached Eleusis at night with the object of kidnapping the Athenian matrons wlio had made sacrifice to Ceres, Pisistratus, the Athenian, engaged it in battle and, by ruthlessly slaughtering the enemy, avenged his own countrymen. Then he filled these same captured ships with Athenian soldiers, placing in full view certain matrons dressed as captives. The Megarians, deceived by these appearances, thinking their own people were sailing back, and that, too, crowned with victory, rushed out to meet them, in disorder and without weapons, whereupon they were a second time overwhelmed.^

Cimon, the Athenian general, having defeated the fleet of the Persians near the island of Cyprus, fitted out his men with the weapons of the prisoners and in the barbarians' own ships set sail to meet the enemv in Pamphylia, near the Eurymedon River. The Persians, recognizing the vessels and the garb of those standing on deck, were quite off their guard. Thus on the same day they were suddenly crushed in two battles, one on sea and one on land.^

X. On Repairing One's Losses after a Reverse

When Titus Didius was warring in Spain and had fought an extremely bitter engagement, to which darkness put an end, leaving a large number of slain on both sides, he provided for the burial by night of many bodies of his own men. On the following day, the Spaniards, coming out to perform a like duty, found more of their men slain than of

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