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After this Dionysius, who was in terror of the Carthaginians, sent his brother-in-law Polyxenus as ambassador both to the Greeks in Italy and to the Lacedaemonians, as well as the Corinthians, begging them to come to his aid and not to suffer the Greek cities of Sicily to be utterly destroyed. He also sent to the Peloponnesus men with ample funds to recruit mercenaries, ordering them to enlist as many soldiers as they could without regard to economy. [2] Himilcon decked his ships with the spoils taken from the enemy and put in at the great harbour of the Syracusans, and he caused great dismay among the inhabitants of the city. For two hundred and fifty ships of war entered the harbour, with oars flashing in order and richly decked with the spoils of war; then came the merchantmen, in excess of three thousand, laden with more than five hundred . . .; and the whole fleet numbered some two thousand vessels.1 The result was that the harbour of the Syracusans, despite its great size, was blocked up by the vessels and it was almost entirely concealed from view by the sails. [3] The ships had just come to anchor when at once from the other side the land army advanced, consisting, as some have reported, of three hundred thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry. The general of the armaments, Himilcon, took up his quarters in the temple of Zeus and the rest of the multitude encamped in the neighbourhood twelve stades from the city. [4] After this Himilcon led out the entire army and drew up his troops in battle order before the walls, challenging the Syracusans to battle; and he also sailed up to the harbours with a hundred of his finest ships in order to strike terror into the inhabitants of the city and to force them to concede that they were inferior at sea as well. [5] But when no one ventured to come out against him, for the time being he withdrew his troops to the camp and then for thirty days overran the countryside, cutting down the trees and laying it all waste, in order not only to satisfy the soldiers with every kind of plunder, but also to reduce the besieged to despair.

1 What Diodorus wrote in this sentence can never be known.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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