31.
Antiochus was alarmed at this because, having lost his dominion of the sea, he doubted whether he could defend his distant possessions, and ordered his garrison withdrawn from Lysimachia,
1 lest it be destroyed there by the Romans —a foolish decision, as the actual outcome showed later.
[
2]
For it was not only easy to defend Lysimachia from the first assault of the Romans, but even to maintain a siege for an entire winter and to reduce the besiegers even to the extremity of want by dragging out the time and meanwhile to try every chance to realize hopes of a peaceful settlement.
[
3]
Not only did he surrender Lysimachia to the enemy after the defeat on the sea, but he abandoned the siege of Colophon and withdrew to Sardis;
[
4]
and thence he sent agents to Ariarathes
2 in Cappadocia to ask for auxiliaries, and he devoted himself entirely, in every possible way, to collecting troops, having now but one purpose —to settle the question on the battle-field.
[
5]
Aemilius Regillus after the naval victory proceeded to Ephesus, and arraying his ships in front of the harbour, when he had forced from the enemy the final admission that he had yielded control of the sea, he sailed to Chios, whither he had been bound before the naval battle.
[
6]
When he had repaired there the damaged ships, he sent Lucius Aemilius Scaurus with thirty ships to the Hellespont to ferry the army across, and the Rhodians, honoured with part of the booty and naval trophies,
3 he ordered to return home;
[
7]
[p. 383]the Rhodians in their zeal chose first to transport the
4 consul's army; and having finished this additional task, then at length they returned to Rhodes. The Roman fleet from Chios crossed to Phocaea.
[
8]
This city is situated at the extremity of a bay of the sea and is oblong in shape; it is surrounded by a wall of twenty-five hundred paces in length and it grows narrower at each end like a wedge; the people themselves call it Lampter.
5
[
9]
There the width is twelve hundred paces; thence a tongue, like a dividing line, runs a mile into the sea, almost through the centre of the bay; where it joins the narrow entrance-way it produces two very safe harbours facing in opposite directions.
[
10]
The one which faces south they call Naustathmus, because it shelters a great number of ships; the other is near Lampter itself.