3,000 men were isolated on the plain and perished to a man. While the struggle was proceeding, a squadron of twenty-five ships of war arrived from Syracuse. Unfortunately they brought with them some alarming news. In passing the Carthaginian port of Motyé they had observed signs of preparation in the fleet. The explanation suggested and received was that the enemy were preparing to attack Syracuse. The captain of the Syracusan contingent, Diodes by name, was profoundly alarmed by this intelligence. The defence of Himera became a secondary consideration in view of what he believed to be the instant danger of Syracuse itself. He ordered the warships to return immediately. He even insisted on taking back the troops under his own command. The Himeræans remonstrated against this desertion, but remonstrated in vain. It could hardly be denied that Diocles was acting in the interest, at least in the immediate interest, of Syracuse. All that he would agree to, in the way of compromise, was that the ships should transport as many of the Himeræans as could be taken on board to Messana, which was about 150 miles distant (Syracuse was 100 miles further off), and that they should return with all speed to take away the remainder. Those who were left behind, or elected to remain, should do their best in the meantime to hold the city. As for Diocles, he marched away in such haste that he left the bodies of such of his own men as had fallen in the recent conflict unburied--the most shameful confession that a Greek general could make of weakness or defeat. The next day Hannibal renewed the attack. The brave Himeræans still repulsed him. For the whole of that day they were able to hold their own. If they could have maintained their resistance for yet another twelve hours, all might have been well, for the ships, which clearly could not have gone so far as Messana, were seen to be returning. But their strength was exhausted. A breach had been made in the walls, and the Spaniards, again showing their superiority over Hannibal's other troops, forced their way through it. A few of the Himeræans made their way to the ships; but the great mass of the population was either slain or captured. Hannibal, while giving up the spoil of the city without reserve to his soldiers, did his best to stop the massacre. But there was no mercy in his motives. The women and children were either distributed among the conquerors or sold as slaves. The male captives of full age, 3,000 in number, were taken to the precise spot where Hamilcar had been last seen alive, cruelly mutilated and slain. We read of many barbarous acts in Greek history, but of nothing so atrocious as this. If we can see but little trace of humanity, as we understand it, in the Greek character, the people had a sense of fitness, a restraining power of taste, if not of conscience, that forbad such horrors.