XLIX. Pharax was now encamped at Neapolis, in the territory of Agrigentum, and Dion, who led out the Syracusans to oppose him, wished to defer an engagement; but Herakleides and the sailors overwhelmed him with their clamour, saying that he did not wish to bring the war to an end by a battle, but to keep it constantly going on in order that he might remain the longer in command. He therefore fought and was beaten. The defeat was not a disastrous one, but was due more to the confusion produced by the quarrels of his own men than to the enemy. Dion therefore prepared to renew the engagement, drew out his men in battle array, and addressed them in encouraging terms. Towards evening, however, he heard that Herakleides had weighed anchor and sailed away to Syracuse with the fleet, with the intention of seizing the city and shutting its gates against Dion and the army. Dion at once took the strongest and bravest men with him, and rode all night, reaching the gates of Syracuse about the third hour of the next day, after a journey of seven hundred stadia. Herakleides, who in spite of the exertions of his fleet was beaten in the race, was at a loss what to do, and sailed away aimlessly. He chanced to fall in with the Spartan Gæsylus, who informed him that he was coming from Lacedæmon to take command of the Sicilian Greeks, as Gylippus had done in former times. Herakleides was delighted at having met this man, and displayed him to his troops, boasting that he had found a counterpoise to the power of Dion, he at once sent a herald to Syracuse, and ordered the citizens to receive the Spartan as their ruler. When Dion answered that the Syracusans had rulers enough, and that in case they should require a Spartan to command them, he himself was a Spartan by adoption, Gæsylus gave up all claims to command, but went to Dion and reconciled Herakleides to him, making Herakleides swear the greatest oaths and give the strongest pledges for his future good behaviour, while Gæsylus himself swore that he would avenge Dion and punish Herakleides in case the latter should misconduct himself.