41.
They had spent some days in such debates when an unauthenticated rumour that King Ptolemy was dead caused no conclusion to be reached by their conversations.
[2]
For each party pretended not to have heard it, and Lucius Cornelius, to whom had been entrusted the embassy to the two kings, Antiochus and Ptolemy, requested an adjournment of a short time, that he might visit Ptolemy, his purpose being that he might arrive in Egypt before any revolution should occur while
[3]
the throne was changing hands, while Antiochus believed that Egypt would be his if he should have succeeded in gaining possession of it at this time.
[4]
So he dismissed the Romans, leaving his son Seleucus with the army to rebuild Lysimachia according to plan, and himself sailed for Ephesus with his entire fleet, sending ambassadors to Quinctius to say, with a view to creating confidence, that the king would do nothing to modify their alliance.
[5]
Skirting the coast of Asia, he came to Lycia, and learning at Patara that Ptolemy was alive, he gave up his design of sailing to Egypt;
[6]
nevertheless, he set out for Cyprus, and when he had passed the promontory of Chelidoniae, he was delayed for a while in Pamphylia near the mouth of the Eurymedon river by a mutiny among his rowers.
[7]
When he resumed his voyage and was off the mouth of the river which they call Sarus, a terrific storm almost overwhelmed him and his whole fleet. Many ships were wrecked, many driven ashore, many so swallowed up in the sea that no one escaped to the shore.
[8]
A large number of men perished, not only rowers and the nameless mass of soldiers, but some of the nobles, [p. 389]friends of the king. Collecting the remnants left1 from the wreck, and being in no condition to try an expedition to Cyprus, he returned to Seleucia with a train less rich than that with which he had set out.
[9]
There he ordered the ships to be hauled up on land —for winter was now at hand —and went into winter quarters at Antioch. The affairs of the kings were in this state.
1 B.C. 196
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