Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/359

 STRATAGEMS, IV. vii. 9-15

Gnaeus Scipio, in a naval combat, hurled jars filled with pitch and rosin among the vessels of the enemy, in order that damage might result both from the weight of the missiles and from the scattering of their contents, which would serve as fuel for a conflagration.

Hannibal suggested to King Antiochus that he hurl jars filled with vipers among the ships of the enemy, in order that the crews, through fear of tliese, might be kept from fighting and from per- forming their nautical duties.^

Prusias did the same, when his fleet was by now giving way.i

Marcus Porcius Cato, having boarded the ships of the enemy, drove from them the Cartlinginians. Then, having distributed their weapons and insignia among his own men, he sank many ships of the enemy, deceiving them by their own equipment.

Inasmuch as the Athenians had been subject to repeated attacks by the Spartans, on one occasion, in the course of a festival which they were cele- brating outside the city in honour of Minerva, they studiously aflected the role of worshippers, yet with weapons concealed beneath their clothing. When the ceremonial was over, they did not immediately return to Athens, but at once marched swiftly upon Sparta at a time when they were least feared, and themselves devastated the lands of an enemy whose victims they had often been.

Cassius set fire to some transports which were of no great use for anything else, and sent them with a fair wind against the fleet of the enemy, thereby destroying it by fire.^

When Marcus Livius had routed Hasdrubal, and

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