But the enemy, in the absence of pursuit, soon rallied, and in a few hours inflicted upon Pisani a most disastrous defeat. He himself barely escaped with six galleys out of the nineteen or twenty that had composed his force. Poor in ships, as Venice was at that time, this was a blow that threatened her existence; for the Genoese now had nearly forty vessels, including the prizes recently taken, some of which were perhaps the very galleys they had lost to Pisani at Anzio. How far Pisani’s misfortune was the result of the unwise advice he was obliged to submit to from Michel [Sidenote: _Rom. iii. 268._] Steno, it is not easy to say; but he was certainly badly handicapped by the non-arrival of his other appointed counsellor, Carlo Zeno, with the promised reinforcements. The Senate took neither the one question nor the other into consideration, any more than it showed the slightest grateful recollection of his many former services to the Republic. He was hastily tried, convicted of having failed to do his duty, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, with the loss, during five years, of all emoluments he received from the State and of all public office for the same period. Venice always acted on the principle that no amount of success could condone one failure, and that defeat was next door to treason. Michel Steno fared somewhat better, for he was not actually imprisoned, but he and all the officers of the fleet were suspended from all public functions for a year. These drastic measures did not improve the position of the Republic in that time of immediate danger. It was easy to consign Vittor Pisani to the pozzi, but it was quite another matter to replace him, especially in the absence of Carlo Zeno, the only other man of the same calibre upon whom Venice could count. Pietro Doria had taken the place of Luciano, whom Pisani had killed in battle, and he worked his way steadily up the eastern coast, retaking one by one all the fortified places which Pisani had recently seized, until at last his fleet appeared off the Lido, literally within sight of Venice. The consternation was indescribable, and it is more than likely that if Pietro Doria had boldly forced the entrance to the lagoons, the city would have fallen an easy prey. Indeed, the situation of the Republic seemed even then almost desperate, for while she was beaten at sea and assailed by the Genoese fleet, the Carrara had leagued themselves against her with the King of Hungary, and threatened her land boundaries on the north and west. But it always happens in the history of nations, as it generally does in the private lives of individual men, that the last extremity of danger calls forth the true character of peoples, as of persons. It is then that the hero is a hero; it is then that the coward performs miracles of speed in flight.