University of Virginia Library

37.28

When the Teians saw this devastation going on before their eyes they sent a deputation, wearing suppliant emblems, to the Roman commander. In reply to their protestations of innocence as to any hostility in either word or deed against the Romans, he charged them with having assisted the enemy with whatever supplies they needed, and told them how much wine they had promised to Polyxenidas, and that if they would furnish the Roman fleet with the same quantity he would recall his soldiers from their raid. On the return of the deputation with this stern reply the townsmen were summoned by the magistrates to an assembly that they might consult as to what they should do. Polyxenidas meantime had heard that the Romans had moved from Samos and, after chasing the pirates to Myonnesus, had anchored their ships in the harbour and were plundering the Teian district. He proceeded with the king's fleet from Colophon and, without betraying his movements, cast anchor at an island opposite Myonnesus -the seafaring men call it Macris -on the very day, as it happened, that the Romans reached Teos.

From his position near the enemy he found out what they were doing, and was at first in great hopes of defeating the Romans by the same maneuver as that by which he had worsted the Rhodian fleet at Samos, namely by blocking the mouth of the harbour. The situation was much the same, the harbour is so shut in by the converging headlands that it is difficult for two ships to come out abreast. Polyxenidas intended to seize these headlands during the night and, after stationing ten ships off each to make a flank attack on the enemy vessels as they came out, he was going to land the troops from the rest of his fleet, as he had done at Panhormus, and overpower the Romans on sea and land alike. His plan would have succeeded but for the movements of the Roman fleet. As the Teians had undertaken to comply with the praetor's requirements it was thought more convenient, for the purpose of taking the supplies on board, to move into the other harbour in front of the city. Eudamus also, it is stated, drew attention to the disadvantages of the first harbour after two ships had smashed their oars by fouling one another in the narrow entrance. A further consideration which weighed with the praetor and induced him to change his moorings, was the danger which threatened him from the land, as Antiochus had his standing camp at no great distance.