Greek Texts & Translations

Now the Carthaginians cut down the trees of the countryside and threw a trench ^note about their encampment, since they were expecting Dionysius to come with a strong army to the aid of the imperilled inhabitants. 13.108.6The Geloans at first voted to remove their children and women out of danger to Syracuse because of the magnitude of the expected danger, but when the women fled to the altars about the market-place and begged to share the same fortune as the men, they yielded to them. 13.108.7After this, forming a very large number of detachments, they sent the soldiers in turn over the countryside; and they, because of their knowledge of the land, attacked wandering bands of the enemy, daily brought back many of them alive, and slew not a few. 13.108.8And although the Carthaginians kept launching assaults in relays upon the city and breaching the walls with their battering-rams, the Geloans defended themselves gallantly; for the portions of the walls which fell during the day they built up again at night, the women and children assisting. For those who were in the bloom of their physical strength were under arms and constantly in battle, and the rest of the multitude stood by to attend to the defences and the rest of the tasks with all eagerness. 13.108.9In a word, they met the attack of the Carthaginians so stoutly that, although their city lacked natural defences and they were without allies and they could, besides, see the walls falling in a number of places, they were not dismayed at the danger which threatened them.

ch. 109 13.109.1Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusans, summoning aid from the Greeks of Italy and his other allies, led forth his army; and he also enlisted the larger part of the Syracusans of military age and enrolled the mercenaries in the army. 13.109.2He had in all, as some record, fifty thousand soldiers, but according to Timaeus, thirty thousand infantry, a thousand cavalry, and fifty decked vessels. With a force of such size he set out to the aid of the Geloans, and when he drew near the city, he pitched camp by the sea. 13.109.3For his intent was not to divide his army but to use the same base for the fighting by land as well as by sea; and with his light armed troops he engaged the enemy and did not allow them to forage over the countryside, while with his cavalry and ships he attempted to deprive the Carthaginians of the supplies which they got from the territory of which they were masters. 13.109.4Now for twenty days they were inactive, doing nothing worthy of mention. But after this Dionysius divided his infantry into three groups, and one division, which he formed of the Sicilian Greeks, he ordered to advance against the entrenched camp of their adversaries with the city on their left flank; the second division, which he formed of allies, he commanded to drive along the shore with the city on their right; and he himself with the contingent of mercenaries advanced through the city against the place where the Carthaginian engines of war were stationed. 13.109.5And to the cavalry he gave orders that, as soon as they saw the infantry advancing, they should cross the river and overrun the plain, and if they should see their comrades winning, they should join in the fighting, but in case they were losing, they should receive any who were in distress; and to the troops on the ships his orders were, so soon as the Italian Greeks made their attack, to sail against the camp of the enemy.

ch. 110 13.110.1When the fleet carried out their orders at the proper time, the Carthaginians rushed to the aid of that sector in an attempt to keep back the attackers disembarking from the ships; and in fact that portion of the camp which the Carthaginians occupied was unfortified, all the part which lay along the beach. 13.110.2And at this very time the Italian Greeks, who had covered the entire distance along the sea, attacked the camp of the Carthaginians, having found that most of the defenders had gone to give aid against the ships, and putting to flight the troops which had been left behind at this place, they forced their way into the encampment. 13.110.3At this turn of affairs the Carthaginians, turning about with the greater part of their troops, after a sustained fight, thrust out with difficulty the men who had forced their way within the trench. The Italian Greeks, overcome by the multitude of the barbarians, encountered as they withdrew the acute angle of the palisade and no help came to them; 13.110.4for the Sicilian Greeks, advancing through the plain, came too late and the mercenaries with Dionysius encountered difficulties in making their way through the streets of the city and thus were unable to make such haste as they had planned. The Geloans, advancing for some distance from the city, gave aid to the Italian Greeks over only a short space of the area, since they were afraid to abandon the guarding of the walls, and as a result they were too late to be of any assistance. 13.110.5The Iberians and Campanians, who were serving in the army of the Carthaginians, pressing hard upon the Italian Greeks, slew more than a thousand of them. But since the crews of the ships held back the pursuers with showers of arrows, the rest of them got back in safety to the city.