But Dionysius constructed triremes with five banks of oars, and had a navy vastly superior to what Athens ever possessed. He now hired soldiers from every quarter, enlisting Syracusans and the inhabitants of the cities depending upon her. He sent envoys to Italy and the Peloponnesus for recruits, offering the most liberal pay. (M667) When all his preparations were completed, he married, on the same day, two wives—the Locrian (Doris), and the Syracusan (Aristomache), and both of these women lived with him at the same table in equal dignity. He had three children by Doris, the oldest of whom was Dionysius the Younger, and four by Aristomache. When his nuptials had been celebrated with extraordinary magnificence, and banquets, and fetes, in which the whole population shared, he convoked a public assembly, and exhorted the citizens to war against Carthage, as the common enemy of Greece, B.C. 397. He then granted permission to plunder the Carthaginian ships in the harbor, and shortly after marched out from Syracuse with an army against the Carthaginians in Sicily, consisting of eighty thousand men, while a fleet of two hundred triremes and five hundred transports accompanied his march along the coast—the largest military force hitherto assembled under Grecian command. (M668) The first place he attacked was Motya, north of Cape Lilybæum, in the western extremity of the island, all the Grecian cities under Carthaginian leadership having revolted. This city was both populous and wealthy, built on an islet, which was separated from Sicily by a narrow strait two-thirds of a mile in width, bridged over by a narrow mole. The Motyans, seeing the approach of so formidable an army, broke up their mole, and insulated themselves from Sicily. The Carthaginians sent a large fleet to assist Motya, under Imilco, but being inferior to that of Dionysius, it could not venture on a pitched battle. Motya made a desperate defense, but a road across the strait being built by the besiegers, the new engines of war carried over it were irresistible, the town was at length carried and plundered, and the inhabitants slaughtered or sold as slaves.