Organization of the Resistance in Sicily
The land army of the Carthaginians thus destroyed, those of the Sicilians who had been soldiers of Hippocrates retired to two small towns, but strong enough by their situation and by their intrenchments, one of which is three, the other fifteen miles from Syracuse. There they smuggled the food and relief supplies they were drawing from their country. that effective help could be brought to them, and even the Romans taken in the city which they seemed to have taken. He determined the Carthaginians to send back, under his leadership, to Sicily a large number of vessels laden with all sorts of provisions, and to reinforce his fleet. Having left Carthage with one hundred and thirty long ships and seven hundred cargo ships, he had the wind favorable enough to cross into Sicily; but the same wind prevented him from rounding Cape Pachynum.
First the noise of Bomilcar's arrival, then that of his unexpected delay, delivered the Romans and the Syracusans to the alternatives of fear and joy. Epicydes, fearing that, if the easterly winds then prevailing continued to blow for several days after sunrise, the Carthaginian fleet would resume the route of Africa, left the guard of Achradine to the leaders of the troops mercenaries, and went by sea to Bomilcar. He found her with her bow already turned towards Africa and fearing a naval combat, not that she was inferior in strength, because her fleet was more numerous, but because the Romans had the advantage of the wind over her. Epicydes, however, knew how to persuade him to risk a battle.
For his part, Marcellus, seeing that all Sicily was setting up a formidable army and that the Carthaginian fleet was about to approach with considerable convoys, feared to to find himself confined by land and sea in an enemy city, and, in spite of the inferiority of the number of his ships, he resolved to prevent Bomilcar from entering Syracuse. (10) Two opposing fleets bordered the promontory of Pachynum, ready to take advantage of the first calm that would allow them to reach the open sea.
As soon as the east wind, which had been blowing violently for several days, had died down a little, Bomilcar was the first to set off, and his vanguard seemed to take the high seas to round the cape more easily; but when he saw the Roman fleet advancing against him, stricken with I do not know what sudden terror, he sailed out to sea, sent messengers to Heraclea to order the cargo ships to return to Africa, himself coasted Sicily, and reached the port of Taranto. (13) Epicydes, suddenly frustrated by such a beautiful hope and renouncing to support the siege of a half-taken city, sailed towards Agrigento, rather to await the event there than to attempt the slightest enterprise. P>