Dio's Rome, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 327 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 3.

Dio's Rome, Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 327 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 3.
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
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Dio's Rome, Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.