Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/449

 RELIEF FROM SYRACUSE. 427 combat, were completely defeated, and driven back to the Cartha- ginian camp near the city, where they found themselves under thft protection of the main army. Daplmaeus, having secured the victory and inflicted severe loss upon the enemy, was careful to prevent his troops from disordering their ranks in the ardor of pursuit, in the apprehension that Imilkon with the main body might take advantage of that disorder to turn the fortune of the day, as had happened in the terrible defeat before Himera, three years before. The routed Iberians were thus allowed to get back to the camp. At the same time the Agrigen tines, wit- nessing from the walls, with joyous excitement, the flight of their enemies, vehemently urged their generals to lead them forth for an immediate sally, in order that the destruction of the fugitives might thus be consummated. But the generals were inflexible in resisting such demand ; conceiving that the city itself would thus be stripped of its defenders, and that Imilkon might seize the occasion for assaulting it with his main body, when there was not sufficient force to repel them. The defeated Iberians thus escaped to the main camp ; neither pursued by the Syracusans, nor impe- ded, as they passed near the Agrigentine walls, by the population within. Presently Daphnaeus with his victorious army reached Agri- gentum, and joined the citizens ; who flocked in crowds, along with the Lacedaemonian Dexippus, to meet and welcome them. But the joy of meeting, and the reciprocal congratulations on the recent victory, were fatally poisoned by general indignation for the unmolested escape of the defeated Iberians ; occasioned by nothing less than remissness, cowai'dice, or corruption, (so it was contended), on the part of the generals, first the Syracusan generals, and next the Agrigentine. Against the former, little was now said, though much was held in reserve, as we shall soon hear. But against the latter, the discontent of the Agrigentine population burst forth instantly and impetuously. A public assem- bly being held on the spot, the Agrigentine generals, five in num- ber, were put under accusation. Among many speakers who denounced them as guilty of treason, the most violent of all was that they must have been on the western side ; misled by the analogy of the Roman siege in 262 B. c., when the Carthaginian relieving army under Hannowere coming from the westward, from Heraklei (Polyb. i, 19).