36.43
The
consul was laying siege to Naupactus at the time. Livius was detained at
Delos by contrary winds for several days; the seas round the Cyclades are
liable to violent storms, owing to the numerous channels, some narrower,
some wider, which separate the islands. Polyxenidas received intelligence
through the scouting vessels which were patrolling those waters that the
Roman fleet was lying at Delos, and he sent on the information to the king.
Antiochus abandoned his designs in the Hellespont and returned to Ephesus
with all possible speed, taking his warships with him. He at once called a
council of war to decide whether he ought to risk an engagement.
Polyxenidas was opposed to any delay, and said that they certainly ought to
engage before Eumenes and the Rhodians joined the Roman fleet. In that
case they would not be so very unequally matched in point of numbers and in
everything else they would have the advantage, in the speed of their vessels
and in various other respects, for the Roman ships were awkwardly built and
slow, and as they were going to a hostile country they would be heavily
laden with stores, whilst the king's ships, having none but friends all round
them, would carry nothing but soldiers and their equipment. They would be
greatly assisted, too, by their familiarity with the sea and the coasts and their
knowledge of the winds; the enemy on the other hand, who was ignorant of
all this, would be thrown into confusion by them. The council unanimously
approved of his proposal, since the man who made it was also the one who
was to carry it out.
Two days were spent in preparations, on the third day they set sail
for Phocaea with a fleet of a hundred ships, seventy decked, the rest open
ships, but all smaller than the corresponding vessels of the enemy fleet. On
hearing that the Roman fleet was approaching, the king, who had no
intention of taking part in a naval battle, withdrew to Magnesia ad Sipylum
to assemble his land forces, the fleet sailing on to Cissus, the port of
Erythrae, as that appeared a more suitable place in which to await the
enemy. The Romans had been detained at Delos for some days by northerly
winds; when these subsided they put out from Delos and steered for the
harbour of Phanae, at the southern end of Chios, facing the Aegean. They
then brought their ships up to the city, and after taking in supplies sailed to
Phocaea. Eumenes, who had gone to his fleet at Elea, returned in a few days
with twenty-four decked ships and a larger number of open ones, and sailed
on to Phocaea, where he found the Romans getting their ships ready and
making every preparation for the coming naval contest. From Phocaea they
put to sea with one hundred and five decked ships and about fifty open ones.
At first they were driven towards the land by the northerly winds which blew
across their course and were forced to sail in almost a single line; when the
wind became less violent they endeavoured to make the harbour of Corycus,
which lies beyond Cissus.
