This suggestion found no supporters. Eumenes asked: "What do you mean? When you have barred access to the sea with the sunken ships whilst your own fleet is free, are you going to sail away to assist your friends and spread alarm amongst your enemies, or are you going to continue your blockade of the harbour just the same? [2] If you leave the place, who can have the slightest doubt that the enemy will raise the sunken obstacles and open the harbour with less trouble than it will take us to close it? And if you have to remain here, what good will the closing of the harbour do? [3] Nay, on the other hand, they will spend the summer in the peaceful enjoyment of a harbour perfectly safe and a city filled with wealth, with all the resources of Asia at their command, whilst the Romans, exposed to waves and storms on the open sea and deprived of all [4??] supplies, will have to maintain a constant watch and will be themselves more tied up and debarred from doing what ought to be [5??] done than the enemy, in spite of their barriers." Eudamus, the commandant of the Rhodian fleet, expressed his disapproval of the plan without saying what he thought ought to be done. [6] Epicrates gave it as his opinion that for the time being they ought to leave Ephesus out of account and send a portion of the fleet to Lycia to gain Patara, the capital of the country, as an ally. [7] That course would possess two great advantages: the Rhodians with a friendly country opposite their island would be able to devote their undivided strength to the war with Antiochus, and [8??] his fleet which was being assembled in Cilicia would be prevented from joining Polyxenidas. [9] This proposal weighed most with the council; it was, however, decided that Regillus should take the whole fleet to the port of Ephesus to overawe the enemy.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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