the middle of the way, marched in a body to the city, in order to entice the Macedonians out of the gates. Then, when that same fear had deterred any one from coming out, the Romans returned to their ships. And the enemy avoiding a contest by land or sea, the fleet sailed back to Samos, whence it came. The prætor then detached two Rhodian triremes, and two belonging to the Italian allies, under the command of Epicrates, a Rhodian, to guard the strait of Cephallenia. Hybristas, a Lacedæmonian, at the head of a band of young Cephallenians, infested it with piracies; and the passage was shut against the convoys from Italy. 14. Epicrates met, at Piræus, Lucius Æmilius Regillus, who was on his way to take the command of the fleet. On hearing of the defeat of the Rhodians, as he had only two quinqueremes, he carried back with him to Asia Epicrates and his four ships. Some undecked vessels of the Athenians followed him. He crossed the Ægean Sea to Chios. To which place came, in the middle of the night, Timasicrates, a Rhodian, with two quadriremes from Samos, and, being presented to Æmilius, he told him that he was despatched for the purpose of convoying him in safety, because the king’s ships, by frequent excursions from the Hellespont and Abydos, rendered the sea on that coast dangerous to transports. Two Rhodian quadriremes met Æmilius on his passage from Chios to Samos, being sent by Livius to attend him, and king Eumenes with two quinqueremes met him. Æmilius, after he arrived at Samos, as soon as he had received the command of the fleet from Livius, and duly performed the usual sacrifices, called a council. Here, Caius Livius, whose opinion was first asked, said, that “no one could give advice with more sincerity than he, who recommended to another what himself would do in the same case. That he had intended to sail with the whole fleet to Ephesus; to take with him ships of burden, heavily laden with ballast, and to sink them in the entrance of the harbour. That the narrow passage might be shut up with less difficulty on this account, because the mouth of the port was like a river, long and narrow, and full of shoals. By this expedient he was about to cut off the enemy’s communication with the sea, and render their fleet useless.”