37.15
This
suggestion found no supporters. Eumenes asked: "What do you mean?
When you have barred access to the sea with the sunken ships whilst your
own fleet is free, are you going to sail away to assist your friends and spread
alarm amongst your enemies, or are you going to continue your blockade of
the harbour just the same? If you leave the place, who can have the slightest
doubt that the enemy will raise the sunken obstacles and open the harbour
with less trouble than it will take us to close it? And if you have to remain
here, what good will the closing of the harbour do? Nay, on the other hand,
they will spend the summer in the peaceful enjoyment of a harbour perfectly
safe and a city filled with wealth, with all the resources of Asia at their
command, whilst the Romans, exposed to waves and storms on the open sea
and deprived of all supplies, will have to maintain a constant watch and will
be themselves more tied up and debarred from doing what ought to be done
than the enemy, in spite of their barriers." Eudamus, the commandant of the
Rhodian fleet, expressed his disapproval of the plan without saying what he
thought ought to be done. Epicrates gave it as his opinion that for the time
being they ought to leave Ephesus out of account and send a portion of the
fleet to Lycia to gain Patara, the capital of the country, as an ally. That
course would possess two great advantages: the Rhodians with a friendly
country opposite their island would be able to devote their undivided
strength to the war with Antiochus, and his fleet which was being assembled
in Cilicia would be prevented from joining Polyxenidas. This proposal
weighed most with the council; it was, however, decided that Regillus
should take the whole fleet to the port of Ephesus to overawe the enemy.
