41.
These disputes had been carried on for several days, when a rumour reached them, but without any sufficiently certain authority, that Ptolemy was dead;
[2]
which prevented the conferences coming to any issue: for both parties made a secret of their having heard it; and Lucius Cornelius, who was charged with the embassy to the two kings, Antiochus and Ptolemy, requested to be allowed a short space of time, in which he could have a meeting with the latter;
[3]
because he wished to arrive in Egypt before any change of measures should take place in consequence of the new succession to the crown: while Antiochus believed that Egypt would be his own, if at that time he should take possession of it.
[4]
Wherefore, having dismissed the Romans, and left his son Seleucus, with the land forces, to finish the rebuilding of Lysimachia, as he had intended to do, he sailed, with his whole fleet, to Ephesus;
[5]
sent ambassadors to Quinctius to treat with him about an alliance, assuring him that the king would attempt no innovations, and then, coasting along the shore of Asia, proceeded to Lycia.
[6]
Having learned at Patarae that Ptolemy was living, he dropped the design of sailing to Egypt, but nevertheless steered towards Cyprus; and, when he had passed the promontory of Chelidonium, was detained some little time in Pamphylia, near the river Eurymedon, by a mutiny among his rowers.
[7]
When he had sailed thence as far as the headlands, as they are called, of Sarus, such a dreadful storm arose as almost buried him and his whole fleet in the deep. Many [p. 1482]ships were broken to pieces, and many cast on shore; many swallowed so entirely in the sea, that not one man of their crews escaped to land.
[8]
Great numbers of his men perished on this occasion; not only persons of mean rank, rowers and soldiers, but even of his particular friends in high stations.
[9]
When he had collected the relics of the general wreck, being in no capacity of making an attempt on Cyprus, he returned to Seleucia, with a far less numerous force than he had set out with. Here he ordered the ships to be hauled ashore, for the winter was now at hand, and proceeded to Antioch, where he intended to pass the winter. —In this posture stood the affairs of the kings.
Livy. History of Rome by Titus Livius, books twenty-seven to thirty-six. literally translated, with notes and illustrations, by. Cyrus Edmonds. York Street, Covent Garden, London. Henry G. Bohn. John Child and son, printers, Bungay. 1850. 3.
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