Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/470

 448 HISTORY OF GREECE. unassailable an eminence, as those of Agrigentum, gave way on more than one point. Yet still the besieged, with obstinate valor, frustrated every attempt to penetrate within ; reestablishing during the night the breaches which had been made during the day. The feebler part of their population aided, by every means in their power, the warriors on the battlements ; so the defen6e was thus made good until Dionysius appeared with the long-ex- pected reinforcement. It comprised his newly-levied mercenaries, with the Syracusan citizens, and succors from the Italian as well as from the Sicilian Greeks ; amounting in all to fifty thousand men, according to Ephorus, to thirty thousand foot, and one thousand horse, as Timaeus represented. A fleet of fifty ships of war sailed round Cape Pachynus to cooperate with them off Gela. 1 Dionysius fixed his position between Gela and the sea, opposite to that of the Carthaginians, and in immediate communication with his fleet His presence having suspended the assaults upon the town, he became in his turn the aggressor; employing both his cavalry and his fleet to harass the Carthaginians and intercept their supplies. The contest now assumed a character nearly the same as had taken place before Agrigentum, and which had ended so unfavorably to the Greeks. At length, after twenty days of such desultory warfare, Dionysius, finding that he had accom- plished little, laid his plan for a direct attack upon the Carthagi- nian camp. On the side towards the sea, as no danger had been expected, that camp was unfortified ; it was there, accordingly, that Dionysius resolved to make his principal attack with his left division, consisting principally of Italiot Greeks, sustained by the Syracusan ships, who were to attack simultaneously from seaward. He designed at the same time also to strike blows from two other points. His right division, consisting of Sicilian allies, was ordered to march on the right or western side of the town of Gela, and thus fall upon the left of the Carthaginian camp ; while he him- self, with the mercenary troops which he kept specially around him, intended to advance through the town itself, and assail the advanced or central portion of their position near the walls, where their battering-machinery was posted. His cavalry were directed 1 Diodor. xiii, 109.