Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/71

 DEFEAT OF DIONYSIUS. 45 sand foot, and three thousand horse ; together with a fleet of three hundred sail, and store ships in proportion. After ravaging much of the open territory of the Carthaginians, he succeeded in mas- tering Selinus, Entella, and Eryx and then laid siege to Lily- baeum. This town, close to the western cape of Sicily, 1 appears to have arisen as a substitute for the neighboring town of Motye (of which we hear little more since its capture by Dionysius in 396 B. c.), and to have become the principal Carthaginian station. He began to attack it by active siege and battering machines. But it was so numerously garrisoned, and so well defended, that he was forced to raise the siege and confine himself to blockade. His fleet kept the harbor guarded, so as to intercept supplies from Africa. Not long afterwards, however, he received intelligence that a fire had taken place in the port of Carthage whereby all her ships had been burnt. Being thus led to conceive that there was no longer any apprehension of naval attack from Carthage, he withdrew his fleet from continuous watch off Lilyboeum ; keep- ing one hundred and thirty men-of-war near at hand, in the har- bor of Eryx, and sending the remainder home to Syracuse. Of this incautious proceeding the Carthaginians took speedy advan- tage. The conflagration in their port had been much overstated. There still remained to them two hundred ships of war, which, after being equipped in silence, sailed across in the night to Eryx. Appearing suddenly in the harbor, they attacked the Syracusan fleet completely by surprise ; and succeeded, without serious re- sistance, in capturing and towing off nearly all of them. After so capital an advantage, Lilybajum became open to reinforcement and supplies by sea, so that Dionysius no longer thought it worth while to prosecute the blockade. On the approach of winter, both parties resumed the position which they had occupied before the recent movement. 2 The despot had thus gained nothing by again taking up arms, aor were the Sicilian dependencies of the Carthaginians at all cut down below that which they acquired by the treaty of 383 B. c. But he received (about January or February 367 B. c.) news of a different species of success, which gave him hardly less satisfac- tion than a victory by land or sea. In the Lensean festival of 1 Diodor. xxii. p. 304. 2 J)iodor. xv. 73 ; xvi. 5