[1] Now, Pharax was encamped at Neapolis, in the territory of Agrigentum, and thither Dion led forth the Syracusans. Dion wished to settle the issue between them at a later opportunity, but Heracleides and his sailors kept crying out against him, saying that his wish was not to decide the war by a battle, but to have it last forever, that he might remain in power.
[2] He was therefore forced into an engagement, and was worsted. Since, however, the defeat of his men was not severe, but due more to their own seditious disorders than to the enemy, Dion again prepared for battle and drew up his forces, persuading and encouraging them.
[3] But in the evening word was brought to him that Heracleides with his fleet was sailing for Syracuse, determined to occupy the city and shut Dion and his army out of it.
[4] Immediately, therefore, he took with him his most influential and zealous supporters and rode all night, and about nine o’clock next day was at the gates of the city, having covered seven hundred furlongs.
[5] But Heracleides, who, in spite of all his efforts, arrived too late with his ships, put out to sea again, and being without definite plans, fell in with Gaesylus the Spartan, who insisted that he was sailing from Sparta to take command of the Sicilians, as Gylippus had formerly done.
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[6] Heracleides, accordingly, gladly took up this man, attached him to himself like an amulet, as it were against the influence of Dion, and showed him to his confederates; then, secretly sending a herald to Syracuse, he ordered the citizens to receive their Spartan commander.
[7] Dion, however, made answer that the Syracusans had commanders enough, and that if their situation absolutely required a Spartan also, he himself was the man, since he had been made a citizen of Sparta. Thereupon Gaesylus gave up his pretensions to the command, and sailing to Dion, effected a reconciliation between him and Heracleides, who took oaths and made the most solemn pledges, in support of which Gaesylus himself swore that he would avenge Dion and punish Heracleides if he worked any more mischief.
Dion. Plutarch. Bernadotte Perrin (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918.
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