pleased. The first volume of the said work contains a long preface, which is well worth reading.

Marcellus, therefore, employed a great part of the second year of the siege in several expeditions in Sicily. On his return from Agrigentum, upon which he had made an ineffectual attempt, he came up with the army of Hippocrates, which he defeated, and killed above eight thousand men. This advantage kept those in their duty, who had entertained thoughts of going over to the Carthaginians. After the gaining of this victory, he returned against Syracuse; and having sent off Appius for Rome, who went thither to demand the consulship, he put Q. Crispinus into his place.

A. M. 3792.

In the beginning of the third campaign,* MarAnt. J. C. 212. cellus, almost absolutely despairing of being able to take Syracuse, either by force, because Archimedes continually opposed him with invincible obstacles, or by famine, as the Cartha ginian fleet, which was returned more numerous than before, easily threw in convoys, deliberated whether he should continue before Syracuse to push the siege, or turn his endeavours against Agregentum. But, before he came to a final determination, he thought it proper to try whether he could not make himself master of Syracuse by some secret intelligence. There were many Syracusans in his camp, who had taken refuge there in the beginning of the troubles. A slave of one of these secretly carried on an intrigue, in which fourscore of the principal persons of the city engaged, who came in companies to consult with him in his camp, concealed in barks under the nets of fishermen. The conspiracy was on the point of taking effect, when a person named Attalus, through resentment for not having been admitted into it, discovered the whole to Epicydes, who put all the conspirators to death.

This enterprise having thus miscarried, Marcellus found himself in new difficulties. Nothing employed his thoughts but the grief and shame of raising a siege, after having consumed so much time, and sustained the loss of so many men and ships in it. An accident supplied him with a resource, and gave new life to his hopes. Some Roman vessels had taken one Damippus, whom Epicydes had sent to negotiate with Philip, king of Macedon. The Syracusans expressed a great desire to ransom this man, and Marcellus was not averse to it. A place near the port Trogilus was agreed on for the conferences concerning the ransom of the prisoner. As the deputies went thither several times, it came into a Roman soldier's thought to consider the wall with attention. After having counted the stones, and examined with his eye the measure of each of them, upon a calculation of the height of the wall he found it to be much lower than it was believed, and concluded that with ladders of a moderate size it might be easily scaled. Without loss of time he related the whole to Marcellus. The general is not always the only

* Liv. l. xxv. n. 23. 31. Plut. in Marcel. 308, 309.

wise man in an army; a private soldier may sometimes furnish him with important hints. Marcellus did not neglect this advice, and assured himself of its reality with his own eyes. Having caused ladders to be prepared, he took the opportunity of a festival, that the Syracusans celebrated for three days in honour of Diana, during which the inhabitants gave themselves up entirely to rejoicing and good cheer. At the time of night when he conceived that the Syracusans, after their debauch, would begin to grow drowsy and fall asleep, he made a thousand chosen troops, in profound silence, advance with their ladders to the wall. When the first had got to the top without noise or tumult, others followed, encouraged by the boldness and success of their leaders. These thousand soldiers, taking advantage of the enemy's stillness, who were either drunk or asleep, soon scaled the wall. Having thrown down the gate of the Hexapylum, they took possession of the quarter of the city called Epipolæ.

It was then no longer time to deceive, but terrify the enemy. The Syracusans, awakened by the noise, began to rouse, and to prepare for action. Marcellus made all his trumpets sound together, which so frightened and alarmed them, that all the inhabitants fled, believing every quarter of the city in the possession of the enemy. The strongest and best part, however, called Achradina, was not yet taken, because separated by its walls from the rest of the city.

Marcellus at day-break entered the new city,* by the quarter called Tyche. Epicydes having hastily drawn up some troops, which he had in the Isle, which was adjoining to Achradina, marched against Marcellus: but finding him stronger and better attende l than he expected, after a slight skirmish he shut himself up in Achradina.

All the captains and officers with Marcellus congratulated him upon this extraordinary success. As to himself, when he had considered from an eminence the loftiness, beauty, and extent of that city, he is said to have shed tears, and to have deplored the unhappy condition it was upon the point of experiencing. He called to mind the two powerful Athenian fleets which had formerly been sunk before this city, and the two numerous armies cut in pieces, with the illustrious generals who commanded them: the many wars sustained with so much valour against the Carthaginians: the many famous tyrants and potent kings, Hiero particularly, whose memory was still recent, who had signalized himself by so many royal virtues, and still more, by the important services he had rendered the Roman people, whose interests had always been as dear to him as his own Moved by that reflection, he believed it incumbent upon him, before he attacked Achradina, to send to the

* The new city, or Neapolis, was Epipolæ, which in the latter times had been taken into the city and surrounded with walls.

besieged to exhort them to surrender voluntarily, and prevent the ruin of their city. His remonstrances and exhortations had no effect.

To prevent being harassed in his rear, he then attacked a fort called Euryelus, which lay at the bottom of the new town, and commanded the whole country on the land side. After having carried it, and placed therein a strong garrison, he turned all his ef forts against Achradina. During these transactions, Hippocrates and Himilcon arrived. The first with the Sicilians having placed and fortified his camp near the great harbour, and given the signal to those who were in possession of Achradina, attacked the old camp of the Romans, in which Crispinus commanded: Epicydes, at the same time, made a sally upon the posts of Marcellus. Neither of these enterprises was successful. Hippocrates was vigorously repulsed by Crispinus, who pursued him as far as his intrenchments, and Marcellus obliged Epicydes to shut himself up m Achradina.

As it was then autuma, there happened a plague, which killed great numbers in the city, and still more in the Roman and Carthaginian camps. The distemper was not excessive at first, and proceeded only from the heat of the season, and the unwholesomeness of the soil: but afterwards the communication with the infected, and even the care taken of them, dispersed the contagion; from whence it happened, that some, neglected and absolutely abandoned, died of the violence of the malady, and others received help which became fatal to those who brought it. Death, and the sight of such as were buried, continually presented a mournful object to the eyes of the living. Nothing was heard night and day but groans and lamentations. At length the being accustomed to the evil had hardened their hearts to such a degree, and so far extinguished all sense of compassion in them, that they not only ceased to grieve for the dead, but left them without interment. Nothing was to be seen every where but dead bodies, exposed to the view of those who expected the same fate. The Carthagi nians suffered much more from it than the others. As they had no place to retire to, they almost all perished, with their generals Hippocrates and Himilcon. Marcellus, from the first breaking out of the disease, had brought his soldiers into the city, where the roofs and shade were of great relief to them; but notwithstanding, he lost no inconsiderable number of men.

Bomilcar, in the mean time, who commanded the Carthaginian fleet, and had made a second voyage to Carthage to bring a new supply, returned with a hundred and thirty ships, and seven hundred transports. He was prevented by contrary winds from doubling the cape of Pachynus. Epicydes, who was afraid that if those winds continued, this fleet might be discouraged and return to Africa, left Achradina to the care of the generals of the mercenary troops, and went to Bomilcar, whom he persuaded to try the

event of a naval battle, as soon as the weather would permit Marcellus, seeing that the troops of the Sicilians increased every day, and that if he staid, and suffered himself to be shut up in Sy racuse, he should be very much pressed at the same time both by sea and land, resolved, though not so strong in ships, to oppose the passage of the Carthaginian fleet. As soon as the high winds abated, Bomilcar stood out to sea, in order to double the cape; but when he saw the Roman ships advance towards him in good order, on a sudden, for what reason is not said, he took to flight, sent orders to the transports to regain Africa, and retired to Tarentum. Epicydes, who had been disappointed in such great hopes, and was apprehensive of returning into a city already half taken, made sail for Agrigentum, rather with the design of awaiting the event of the siege in that place, than of making any new attempt from thence.

When it was known in the camp of the Sicilians, that Epicy des had quitted Syracuse, and the Carthaginians Sicily, they sent deputies to Marcellus, after having sounded the dispositions of the besieged, to treat upon the conditions on which Syracuse should surrender. It was agreed with unanimity enough on both sides, that what had appertained to the kings, should appertain to the Romans; that the Sicilians should retain all the rest, with their laws and liberty. After these preliminaries, they demanded a conference with those to whom Epicydes had intrusted the government in his absence. They told them, they had been sent by the army to Marcellus, and the inhabitants of Syracuse, in order that all the Sicilians, as well within as without the city, might have the same fate, and that no separate convention might be made. Having been permitted to enter the city, and to confer with their friends and relations, after having informed them of what they had already agreed with Marcellus, and giving them assurances that their lives would be safe, they persuaded them to begin by removing the three governors Epicydes had left in his place, which was immediately put in exe

cution.

After which, having assembled the people, they represented. "That for whatever miseries they had suffered till then, or should suffer from thenceforth, they ought not to accuse fortune, as it de pended upon themselves alone to put an end to them: that if the Romans had undertaken the siege of Syracuse, it was out of affection, not enmity, to the Syracusans: that it was not till after they had been apprized of the oppressions they suffered from Hippo erates and Epicydes, those ambitious agents of Hannibal, and af terwards of Hieronymus, that they had taken arms, and begun the siege of the city, not to ruin it, but to destroy its tyrants: that as Hippocrates was dead, Epicydes no longer in Syracuse, his lieutenants slain, and the Carthaginians dispossessed of Sicily, both by sea and land, what reason could the Romans now have for not inclining as much to preserve Syracuse as if Hiero, the sole exam

1

ple of fidelity towards them, were still alive? That neither the city nor the inhabitants had any thing to fear but from themselves, if they let slip the occasion of renewing their amity with the Romans: that they never had so favourable an opportunity as the present, when they were just delivered from the violent government of their tyrants; and that the first use they ought to make of their liberty was to return to their duty."

This discourse was perfectly well received by every body. It was however judged proper to create new magistrates before the nomination of deputies; the latter of whom were chosen out of the former. The deputy who spoke in their name, and who was instructed solely to use his utmosɩ endeavours that Syracuse might not be destroyed, addressed himself to Marcellus to this effect: "It was not the people of Syracuse who first broke the alliance, and declared war against you, but Hieronymus, less criminal still towards Rome than towards his country; and afterwards, when peace was restored by his death, it was not any Syracusan that infringed it, but the tyrant's instruments, Hippocrates and Epicydes. They were the enemies who have made war against you, after having made us slaves, either by violence or fraud and perfidy; and it cannot be said that we have had any times of liberty, that have not also been times of peace with you. At present, as soon as we are become masters of ourselves by the death of those who held Sicily in subjection, we come that very instant to deliver up to you our arms, our persons, our walls, and our city, determined not to refuse any conditions you shall think fit to impose. For the rest," continued he, addressing himself still to Marcellus," your interest is as much concerned as ours. The gods have granted you the glory of having taken the finest and most illustrious city possessed by the Greeks. All we have ever achieved worthy of being recorded, either by sea or land, augments and adorns your triumph. Fame is not a sufficiently faithful chronicler to make known the greatness and strength of the city you have taken; posterity can only judge of them by its own eyes. It is necessary that we should show to all travellers, from whatever part of the universe they come, sometimes the trophies we have obtained from the Athenians and Carthaginians, and sometimes those you have acquired from us; and that Syracuse, thus placed for ever under the protection of Marcellus, may be a lasting and eternal monument of the valour and clemency of him who took and preserved it. It is unjust that the remembrance of Hieronymus should have more weight with you than that of Hiero. The latter was much longer your friend than the former your enemy. Permit me to say, you have experienced the good effects of the amity of Hiero; but the senseless enterprises of Hieronymus have fallen solely upon his own head."

The difficulty was not to obtain what they demanded from Marcellus, but to preserve tranquillity and union amongst those in the city. The deserters, convinced that they should be delivered up to