Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/519

RETREAT OF DIONYSIUS 4 4 j again in cooperation. While allowing his troops some days of re- pose and enjoyment of the victory, he sent envoys to the town of JEtnsL, inviting the Campanian mercenary soldiers to break with Dionysius and join him. Reminding them that their countrymen at Entella were living in satisfaction as a dependency of Carthage (which they had recently testified by resisting the Syracusan inva sion), he promised to them an accession of territory, and a share in the spoils of the war, to be wrested from Greeks who were ene- mies of Campanians not less than of Carthaginians. 1 The Campa- nians of JEtna would gladly have complied with his invitation, and were only restrained from joining him by the circumstance that they had given hostages to the despot of Syracuse, in whose army also their best soldiers were now serving. Meanwhile Dionysius, in marching back to Syracuse, found his army grievously discontented. Withdrawn from the scene of action without even using their arms, they looked forward to nothing bet- ter than a blockade at Syracuse, full of hardship and privation. Accordingly many of them protested against retreat, conjuring him to lead them again to the scene of action, that they might either assail the Carthaginian fleet in the confusion of landing, or join bat- tle with the advancing land-force under Imilkon. At first, Dio- nysius consented to such change of scheme. But he was presently reminded that unless he hastened back to Syracuse, Magon with the victorious fleet might sail thither, enter the harbor, and pos- sess himself of the city; in the same manner as Imilkon had recently succeeded at Messene. Under these apprehensions he re- newed his original order for retreat, in spite of the vehement pro- test of his Sicilian allies ; who were indeed so incensed that most of them quitted him at once. Which of the two was the wiser plan, we have no sufficient means to determine. But the circumstances seem not to have been the same as those preceding the capture of Messene ; for Magon was not in a condition to move forward at once with the fleet, partly from his loss in the recent action, partly from the stormy weather ; and might perhaps have been intercepted in the 1 Diodor. xiv, 61. Ka2 KaftoAov 6s TUV 'EA/l^vtw ysvof inredeiKvve noTis- fiiov VTrao%ov ruv dAAajy i'&vuv. These manifestations of anti-Hellenic sentiment, among the various neighbors ot the Sicilian Greeks, are important to notice, though they are not often brought before us. VOL. x. 32oo.