Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/528

 506 HISTORY 0? GREECE. Dionysius was full/ sensible of the danger which he had thus been assisted to escape. Under the first impressions of alarm, he strove to gain something like popularity ; by a conciliatory lan- guage and demeanor, by presents adroitly distributed, and by in- vitations to his table. Whatever may have been the success of such artifices, the lucky turn, which the siege was now taking, was the most powerful of all aids for building up his full power anew. It was not the arms of the Syracusans, but the wrath of Dem- eter and Persephone, whose temple (in the suburb of Achradina) Imilkon had pillaged, that ruined the besieging army before Syra- cuse. So the piety of the citizens interpreted that terrific pesti- lence which now began to rage among the multitude of their ene- mies without. The divine wrath was indeed seconded (as the historian informs us *) by physical causes of no ordinary severity. The vast numbers of the host were closely packed together; it was now the beginning of autumn, the most unhealthy period of the year ; moreover this summer had been preternaturally hot, and the low marshy ground near the Great Harbor, under the chill of morning contrasted with the burning sun of noon, was the constant source of fever and pestilence. These unseen and irre- sistible enemies feM with appalling force upon the troops of Imil- kon ; especially upon the Libyans, or native Africans, who were found the most susceptible. The intense and varied bodily suf- ferings of this distemper, the rapidity with which it spread from man to man, and the countless victims which it speedily accumulated, appear to have equalled, if not surpassed, the worst days of the pestilence of Athens in 429 B. c. Care and attendance upon the sick, or even interment of the dead, became impracticable ; so that the whole camp presented a scene of de- plorable agony, aggravated by the horrors and stench of one hun- dred and fifty thousand unburied bodies. 2 The military strength of the Carthaginians was completely prostrated by such a visita- 1 Diodor. xiv, 70. SvveTrehufieTo tie KO.I rg TOV daifioviov cv^opg, rb (iv- oiddag elf ravrb cvvaftpoia-dfivai, KOI rb rfjs upaf slvai npbs ruf voaovf evep- yorarov, etc. 1 Diodor. xiv, 71-76. irevreKaideKa fj.vptu.Saf iireldov uruijtovg Sia rbv fat* fibv osGupevfievovt;. I give the figure as I find it, without pretending to trust it as anything more than an indication of a great number.