Eryx, and sending the remainder home to Syracuse. Of this incautious proceeding the Carthaginians took speedy advantage. The conflagration in their port had been much overstated. There still remained to them two hundred ships of war, which, after being equipped in silence, sailed across in the night to Eryx. Appearing suddenly in the harbor, they attacked the Syracusan fleet completely by surprise; and succeeded, without serious resistance, in capturing and towing off nearly all of them. After so capital an advantage, Lilybæum became open to reinforcement and supplies by sea, so that Dionysius no longer thought it worth while to prosecute the blockade. On the approach of winter, both parties resumed the position which they had occupied before the recent movement.[91] [90] Diodor. xxii. p. 304. [91] Diodor. xv. 73; xvi. 5. The despot had thus gained nothing by again taking up arms, nor were the Sicilian dependencies of the Carthaginians at all cut down below that which they acquired by the treaty of 383 B. C. But he received (about January or February 367 B. C.) news of a different species of success, which gave him hardly less satisfaction than a victory by land or sea. In the Lenæan festival of Athens, one of his tragedies had been rewarded with the first prize. A chorist who had been employed in the performance—eager to convey the first intelligence of this success to Syracuse and to obtain the recompense which would naturally await the messenger—hastened from Athens to Corinth, found a vessel just starting for Syracuse, and reached Syracuse by a straight course with the advantage of favorable winds. He was the first to communicate the news, and received the full reward of his diligence. Dionysius was overjoyed at the distinction conferred upon him; for though on former occasions he had obtained the second or third place in the Athenian competitions, he had never before been adjudged worthy of the first prize. Offering sacrifice to the gods for the good news, he invited his friends to a splendid banquet, wherein he indulged in an unusual measure of conviviality. But the joyous excitement, coupled with the effects of the wine, brought on an attack of fever, of which he shortly afterwards died, after a reign of thirty-eight years.[92] [92] Diodor. xv. 74.