Kitap 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.
