Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/509

SIEGE OF MOTYE, 487 &s they lay hauled ashore in the harbor near Motye. Crossing over from Carthage by night, with one hundred ships of war, to the Selinuntine coast, he sailed round Cape Lilybseum, and ap> peared at daybreak off Motye. His appearance took every man by surprise. He destroyed or put to flight the ships on guard, and sailed into the harbor prepared for attack while 'as yet only a few of the Syracusan ships had been got afloat. As the harbor was too confined to enable Dionysius to profit by his great superi ority in number and size of ships, a great portion of his fleet would have been now destroyed, had it not been saved by hia numerous land force and artillery on the beach. Showers of mis- siles, from this assembled crowd as well as from the decks of the Syracusan ships, prevented Imilkon from advancing far enough to attack "with effect. The newly-invented engine called the cata- pulta, of which the Carthaginians had as yet had no experience, was especially effective ; projecting large masses to a great dis- tance, it filled them with astonishment and dismay. While their progress was thus arrested, Dionysius employed a new expedient to rescue his fleet from the dilemma in which it had been caught. His numerous soldiers were directed to haul the ships, not down to the harbor, but landward, across a level tongue of land, more than two miles in breadth, which separated the harbor of Motye from the outer sea. Wooden planks were laid so as to form a pathway for the ships ; and in spite of the great size of the newly- constructed quadriremes and quinqueremes, the strength and ardor of the army sufficed for this toilsome effort of transporting eighty ships across in one day. The entire fleet, double in number to that of the Carthaginians, being at length got afloat, Imilkon did not venture on a pitched battle, but returned at once back to Africa. ' Though the citizens of Motye saw from the walls the mournful spectacle of their friends retiring, their courage was nowise abated. They knew well that they had no mercy to expect ; that the general ferocity of the Carthaginians in their hour of victory, and especially the cruel treatment of Greek captives even in Mo- tye itself, would now be retaliated ; and that their only chance lay in a brave despair. The road across the strait having been at length completed, Dionysius brought up his engines and began his 1 Diodor. Kiv, 50; Polyaenus, v, 2, 6.