not see them all and no one of them manifested any
inclination to come out into the open sea, he despised
them, and on his return made preparations to sail
against Mylae on the following day with all his ships.
Demochares came to much, the same conclusion.
He had the idea that the ships which had approached
him were the only ones, and seeing that they sailed
very slowly by reason of their size he sent for Sextus
by night and made preparations to assail Lipara itself.
When day broke, they were sailing against each other,
expecting to meet inferior numbers. [-3-] As they
came near together and each contrary to his expectations
saw that his opponents were many more than he had thought,
they were at first both alike thrown into confusion,
and some even backed water. Then, fearing flight
more than battle, because in the latter they hoped
to prevail, but in the former they expected to be
utterly destroyed, they moved toward each other and
joined in conflict on the sea. The one side surpassed
in the number of its ships, the other in the experience
of its sailors: to the first the height of the
vessels, the thickness of the catheads and the towers
were a help, but charges straight ahead furthered
the progress of the second, and the strength of Caesar’s
marines was matched by the daring of their antagonists;
for the majority of them, being deserters from Italy,
were quite desperate. As a result, possessing
the mutual advantages and deficiencies which I have
mentioned, they had equal power contributed by their
evenly balanced equipment, and so their contest was
close for a very long period. The followers of
Sextus alarmed their opponents by the way they dashed
up the waves: and they knocked holes in some
ships by assailing them with a rush and bursting open
the parts outside the oars, but as they were struck
from the towers in the combat and brought alongside
by grappling irons, they suffered no less harm than
they inflicted. The Caesarians, also, when they
came into close conflict and had crossed over to the
hostile ships, proved superior; but as the enemy leaped
out into the sea whenever the boats sank, and by their
swimming well and being lightly equipped succeeded
easily in climbing upon others, the attackers were
at a corresponding disadvantage. Meantime the
rapidity with which the ships of the one party could
sail proved an offset to the solidity of those on
the other side, and the heaviness of the latter counterbalanced
the agility of the former. [-4-] Late in the day,
near nightfall, Caesar’s party finally conquered,
but instituted no pursuit: the reason as it appears
to me and may be conjectured from probability was
that they could not overtake the fleeing ships and
were afraid of running aground in the shallows, with
which they were unacquainted, near the coast.
Some say that Agrippa because he was battling for
Caesar and not for himself thought it sufficient merely
to rout his adversaries. For he had been in the
habit of saying to his most intimate associates that