Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/518

 496 HISTORY OF GREECE. presently closed around him, and after a desperate combat, fought in the closest manner, ship to ship and hand to hand, he was forced to sheer off, and to seek escape seaward. His main fleet, coming up in disorder, and witnessing his defeat, were beaten also, after a strenuous contest. All of them fled, either landward or seaward as they could, under vigorous pursuit by the Carthaginian vessels ; and in the end, no less than a hundred of the Syracusan ships, with twenty thousand men, were numbered as taken, or destroyed. Many of the crews, swimming or floating in the water on spars, strove to get to land to the protection of their comrades. But the Carthaginian small craft, sailing very near to the shore, slew or drowned these unfortunate men, even under the eyes of friends ashore who could render no assistance. The neighboring water became strewed, both with dead bodies and with fragments of broken ships. As victors, the Carthaginians were enabled to save many of their own seamen, either on board of damaged ships, or swimming for their lives. Yet their own loss too was severe ; and their victory, complete as it proved, was dearly purchased. Though the land-force of Dionysius had not been at all engaged, yet the awful defeat of his fleet induced him to give immediate orders for retreating, first to Katana and afterwards yet farther to Syracuse. As soon as the Syracusan army had evacuated the adjoining shore, Magon towed all his prizes to land, and there hauled them up on the beach ; partly for repair, wherever practi- cable, partly as visible proofs of the magnitude of the triumph, for encouragement to his own armament. Stormy weather just then supervening, he was forced to haul his own ships ashore also for safety, and remained there for several days refreshing the crews. To keep the sea under such weather would have been scarcely practicable ; so that if Dionysius, instead of retreating, had continued to occupy the shore with his unimpaired land-force, it appears that the Carthaginian ships would have been in the greatest danger ; constrained either to face the storm, to run back a considerable distance northward, or to make good their landing against a formidable enemy, without being able to wait for the arri- val of Imilkon. 1 The latter, after no very long interval, came up, so that the land-force and the navy of the Carthaginians were now 1 Diodor. xiv, 60 1. Compare the speech of Theodoras at Syracuse Afterwards (c. 68). from which we gather a more complete iiea ;>f whaj passed after the battl 3.