Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/529

 PLAGUE AMONG THE BESIEGERS. 507 tion. Far from being able to make progress in the siego, they were not even able to defend themselves against moderate energy on the part of the Syracusans ; who (like the Peloponnesians du- ring the great plague of Athens) were themselves untouched by the distemper. 1 Such was the wretched spectacle of the Carthaginian army, clearly visible from the walls of Syracuse. To overthrow it by a vigorous attack, was an enterprise not difficult ; indeed, so sure, in the opinion of Dionysius, that in organizing his plan of opera- tion, he made it the means of deliberately getting rid of some troops in the city who had become inconvenient to him. Concert- ing measures for a simultaneous assault upon the Carthaginian station both by sea and land, he entrusted eighty ships of war to Pharakidas and Leptines, with orders to move at daybreak ; while he himself conducted a body of troops out of the city, during the darkness of night ; issuing forth by Epipolas and Euryalus (as Gylippus had formerly done when he surprised Plemmyrium 2 ), and making a circuit until he came, on the other side of the Ana- pus, to the temple of Kyane ; thus getting on the land-side or south-west of the Carthaginian position. He first despatched his horsemen, together with a regiment of one thousand mercenary foot-soldiers, to commence the attack. These latter troops had become peculiarly obnoxious to him, having several times engaged hi revolt and disturbance. Accordingly, while he now ordered them up to the assault in conjunction with the horse, he at the same time gave secret directions to the horse, to desert their com- rades and take flight. Both his orders were obeyed. The onset having been made jointly, in the heat of combat the horsemen fled, leaving their comrades all to be cut to pieces by the Cartha- ginians. 3 We have as yet heard nothing about difficulties arising 1 Thucyd. ii, 54. When the Eoman general Marcellus was besieging Syracuse in 212 B.C., a terrific pestilence, generated by causes similar to that of this year, broke out. All parties, Romans, Syracusans, and Carthaginians, suffered from it considerably ; but the Carthaginians worst of all ; they are said to have aU perished (Livy, xxv, 26). 8 Thuryd. vii, 22, 23. 3 Diodor. xiv, 72. OVTOI tf fyaav ol ma&ofyopoi ru Aiovvoit,) trapa 7rairoj aA/lorotwrarof, Kal Trheovanif airoaTaaeif Kal rapa^uf TtoiovvTfc. Aiovep 6 uev Aiovitaioc rolf lirirevaw fyv Trap^yye/l/cdif, orav i^cnrruvTai ruv Tcofaf