498 HISTORY OF GREECE. very act of landing, if Dionysius had moved rapidly back to the shore. As far as ve can judge, it would appear that the complaints of the army against the hasty retreat of Dionysius rested on highly plausible grounds. He nevertheless persisted, and reached Syra- cuse with his army not only much discouraged, but greatly dimin- ished by the desertion of allies. He lost no time in sending forth envoys to the Italian Greeks and to Peloponnesus, with ample funds for engaging soldiers, and urgent supplications to Sparta as well as to Corinth. 1 Polyxenus, his brother-in-law, employed on this mission, discharged his duty with such diligence, that he came back in a comparatively short space of time, with thirty-two ships of war under the command of the Lacedaemonian Pharakidas. 2 Meanwhile Imilkon, having sufficiently refreshed his troops after the naval victory off Katana, moved forward towards Syra- cuse both with the fleet and the land-force. The entry of his fleet into the Great Harbor was ostentatious and imposing ; far above even that of the second Athenian armament, when Demos- thenes first exhibited its brilliant but short-lived force. 3 Two hundred and eight ships of war first rowed in, marshalled in the best order, and adorned with the spoils of the captured Syracusan ships. These were followed by transports, five hundred of them carrying soldiers, and one thousand others either empty or bring- ing stores and machines. The total number of vessels, we are told, reached almost two thousand, covering a large portion of the Great Harbor. 4 The numerous land-force marched up about the same time ; Imilkon establishing his head quarters in the temple of Zeus Olympius, nearly one English mile and a half from the city. He presently drew up his forces in order of battle, and ad- vanced nearly to the city walls ; while his ships of war also, being 1 Diodor. xiv, 61. 3 Diodor. xiv, 63. Polyaenus (v. 8, 2) recounts a manoeuvre of Leptines, practised in bring- ing back a Lacedaemonian reinforcement from Sparta to Sicily on his voy- age along the Tarentine coast. Perhaps this may be the Lacedaemonian division intended. 3 Thucyd. vii, 42 ; Plutarch, Kikias, c. 21 ; Diodor. xiii, 11.
- Diodor. xiv, 62.
The text of Diodorus is here so perplexed as to require conjectural al teration, which Rhodomannus has supplied ; yet not so as to remove all that is obscure. The word siadeofiEvai still remains to be explained or cor tectcd
