Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent Andrea Dandolo with a large force to join and supersede Maffeo Quirini, who was already cruising with a squadron in the Ionian sea; and, on receiving further information of the strength of the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily equipped thirty-two more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia, and despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number under his command up to something like ninety-five.  Recent drafts had apparently told heavily upon the Venetian sources of enlistment, and it is stated that many of the complements were made up of rustics swept in haste from the Euganean hills.  To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging that the Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging for men and money up and down Lombardy.  “Did we do like that, think you?” he adds:—­

  “Beat up for aliens? We indeed? 
    When lacked we homeborn Genoese? 
    Search all the seas, no salts like these,
  For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need."[15]

Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which sailed under Dandolo’s immediate command, went Marco Polo as Sopracomito or Gentleman-Commander.[16]

[Sidenote:  The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola.]

34.  It was on the afternoon of Saturday the 6th September that the Genoese saw the Venetian fleet approaching, but, as sunset was not far off, both sides tacitly agreed to defer the engagement.[17]

The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near the eastern end of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula of Sabbioncello behind them, and Meleda on their left, whilst the Venetians advanced along the south side of Curzola. (See map on p. 50).

According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered at the sight of the Venetian armaments, and sent more than once to seek terms, offering finally to surrender galleys and munitions of war, if the crews were allowed to depart.  This is an improbable story, and that of the Genoese ballad seems more like truth.  Doria, it says, held a council of his captains in the evening at which they all voted for attack, whilst the Venetians, with that overweening sense of superiority which at this time is reflected in their own annals as distinctly as in those of their enemies, kept scout-vessels out to watch that the Genoese fleet, which they looked on as already their own, did not steal away in the darkness.  A vain imagination, says the poet:—­

  “Blind error of vainglorious men
    To dream that we should seek to flee
    After those weary leagues of sea
  Crossed, but to hunt them in their den!"[18]

[Sidenote:  The Venetians defeated, and Marco Polo a prisoner.]