Dionysius had watched the disaster from the shore without being able to give any help to his comrades. The question what he was himself to do became urgent, His bolder counsellors urged him to give battle to Himilco. He was half disposed to follow their advice, but the risk seemed too great. It would be to hazard everything on one throw of the dice. He retreated on Syracuse, and took shelter within the walls. Himilco promptly followed. His army, said to have numbered 300,000, and certainly large, was easily able to invest the city on the landward side; his fleet filled the Great Harbour, though this had an area of nearly four square miles. The Syracusan army did not dare to leave the shelter of their walls; the fleet was glad to be protected by the defences of the Inner Harbour, a refuge which had never yet been entered by a foe. Never had the Greek race in Sicily been reduced to straits so desperate. Only one city remained to it, and this closely invested. Syracuse was like Jerusalem as Isaiah describes her in the height of the Assyrian invasion, "a cottage in a vineyard, a lodge in a garden of cucumbers." Then the tide began to turn. The Syracusans obtained some successes at sea. Some corn ships carrying supplies to the Carthaginian camp were captured, and a squadron of men-of-war which attempted to recover them defeated with a loss of more than half its number, including the admiral's ship. Then pestilence, an attack of bubonic plague if we are to judge from the description given of it, broke out in the camp. It was aggravated by religious terrors. Himilco had shown himself as careless about sacred things as his predecessor in command. He had broken down tombs to use their materials, and had plundered temples, one of them of especial sanctity, the shrine of Persephone, Queen of Hell, and her mother Demeter (the Ceres of Roman mythology). Thousands of men perished--the historians, dealing, as usual, in enormous figures, say one hundred and fifty thousand. The mortality was certainly great, and Dionysius did not fail to use his opportunity. He delivered simultaneous attacks by land and sea, and was successful in both. The fleet was nearly destroyed. Many ships were captured; many more were burnt. Part of the camp was taken. Dionysius took up his quarters at the close of the day near the temple of Zeus, in which Himilco had had his headquarters that very morning.