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After the assembly Daphnaeus led forth his forces and undertook to lay siege to the camp of the Carthaginians, but when he saw that it had been fortified with great outlay, he gave up that design; however, by covering the roads with his cavalry he seized such as were foraging, and by cutting off the transport of supplies brought them into serious straits. [2] The Carthaginians, not daring to wage a pitched battle and being hard pinched by lack of food, were enduring great misfortunes. For many of the soldiers were dying of want, and the Campanians together with the other mercenaries, almost in a body, forced their way to the tent of Himilcar and demanded the rations which had been agreed upon; and if these were not given them, they threatened to go over to the enemy. [3] But Himilcar had learned from some source that the Syracusans were conveying a great amount of grain to Acragas by sea. Consequently, since this was the only hope he had of salvation, he persuaded the soldiers to wait a few days, giving them as a pledge the goblets belonging to the troops from Carthage. [4] He then summoned forty triremes from Panormus and Motye and planned an attack upon the ships which were bringing the supplies; and the Syracusans, because up to this time the barbarians had retired from the sea and winter had already set in, held the Carthaginians in contempt, feeling assured that they would not again have the courage to man their triremes. [5] Consequently, since they gave little concern to the convoying of the supplies, Himilcar, sailing forth unawares with forty triremes, sank eight of their warships and pursued the rest to the beach; and by capturing all the remaining vessels he effected such a reversal in the expectations of both sides that the Campanians who were in the service of the Acragantini, considering the position of the Greeks to be hopeless, were bought off for fifteen talents and went over to the Carthaginians. [6]

The Acragantini at first, when the Carthaginians were faring badly, had enjoyed their grain and other supplies without stint, expecting all the while that the siege would be quickly lifted; but when the hopes of the barbarians began to rise and so many myriads of human beings were gathered into one city, the grain was exhausted before they were aware of it. [7] And the story is told that also Dexippus the Lacedaemonian was corrupted by a bribe of fifteen talents; for without hesitation he replied to a question of the generals of the Italian Greeks, "Yes, it's better if the war is settled somewhere else, for our provisions have failed." Consequently the generals, offering as their excuse that the time agreed upon for the campaign had elapsed, led their troops off to the Strait.1 [8] After the departure of these troops the generals met with the commanders and decided to make a survey of the supply of grain in the city, and when they discovered that it was quite low, they perceived that they were compelled to desert the city. At once, then, they issued orders that all should leave on the next night.

1 Presumably of Messina.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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