[27]
Not long afterward Polyxenidas and the Romans had a naval engagement near Myonnesus, in which the former had ninety decked ships, and Regillus, the Roman admiral, eighty-three, of which twenty-five were from Rhodes. The latter were ranged by their commander, Eudorus, on the left wing. Seeing Polyxenidas on the other wing extending his line much beyond that of the Romans, and fearing lest it should be surrounded, he sailed rapidly around there with his swift ships and experienced oarsmen, and brought his fire-ships against Polyxenidas first, scattering flames everywhere. The ships of the latter did not dare to meet their assailants on account of the fire, but, sailing round and round, tried to keep out of the way, shipped much water, and were exposed to ramming behind the bows.1 Presently a Rhodian ship struck a Sidonian, and the blow being severe the anchor of the latter was dislodged and stuck in the former, fastening them together. The two ships being immovable the contest between the crews became like a land fight. As many others hastened to the aid of each, the competition on both sides became spirited, and the Roman ships broke through the Antiochean line of battle, which was exposed in this way, and surrounded the enemy before they knew it. When they discovered it there was a flight and a pursuit. Twenty-nine of the Antiochean ships were lost, thirteen of which were captured with their crews. The Romans lost only two vessels. Polyxenidas captured the Rhodian ship and brought it to Ephesus.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.