Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/40

 14 HISTORY JF GREECE. Distracted with terror, they were led to fancy, or lo hope, that these were the ships expected from Rhegium to their aid ; though the Rhegines would naturally send their ships, when demanded, to Thurii,on the Tarentine Gulf, not to the Lower sea near Laus. Under this impression, one thousand of them swam off from the shore to seek protection on ship-board. But they found them- selves, unfortunately, on board the fleet of Leptines, brother and admiral of Dionysius, come for the express purpose of aiding the Lucanians. "With a generosity not less unexpected than honor- able, this officer saved their lives, and also, as it would appear, the lives of all the other defenceless survivors ; persuading or constraining the Lucanians to release them, on receiving one mina of silver per man. 1 This act of Hellenic sympathy restored three or four thousand citizens on ransom to Thurii, instead of leaving them to be mas- Bacred or sold by the barbarous Lucanians, and procured the warmest esteem for Leptines personally among the Thurians and other Italiot Greeks. But it incurred the strong displeasure of Dionysius, who now proclaimed openly his project of subjugating these Greeks, and was anxious to encourage the Lucanians as in- dispensable allies. Accordingly he dismissed Leptines, and named as admiral his other brother Thearides. He then proceeded to conduct a fresh expedition ; no longer intended against Rhegium ilone, but against all the Italiot Greeks. He departed from Sy- racuse with a powerful force twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse, with which, he marched by land in five days to Rlessene; his fleet under Thearides accompanying him forty ships of war, and three hundred transports with provisions. Hav- ing first successfully surprised and captured near the Lipari isles a Rhegian squadron of ten ships, the crews of which he constituted prisoners at Messene, he transported his army across the strait into Italy, and laid siege to Kaulonia on the eastern coast of the peninsula, and conterminous with the northern border of his allies the Lokrians. He attacked this place vigorously, with the best Riege machines which his arsenal furnished. The Italiot Greeks, on the other hand, mustered their united 1 Diodor. xiv. 102