s
kept the inhabitants constantly in arms, they divided their young men
into two bands, one of which was led towards the quarter where the
marauders were said to be busy; the other by a different route, to
avoid meeting any of the pirates, towards the station of the ships,
fifteen miles distant from the town. An attack was made on the small
craft, and the guards being killed, the affrighted mariners were
obliged to remove their ships to the other bank of the river. By land,
also, the attack on the dispersed plunderers was equally successful;
and the Grecians, flying back towards their ships, were opposed in
their way by the Venetians. Thus they were enclosed on both sides, and
cut to pieces; and some, who were made prisoners, gave information
that the fleet, with their king, Cleonymus, was but three miles
distant. Sending the captives into the nearest canton, to be kept
under a guard, some soldiers got on board the flat-bottomed vessels,
so constructed for the purpose of passing the shoals with ease; others
embarked in those which had been lately taken from the enemy, and
proceeding down the river, surrounded their unwieldy ships, which
dreaded the unknown sands and flats more than they did the Romans, and
which showed a greater eagerness to escape into the deep than to make
resistance. The soldiers pursued them as far as the mouth of the
river; and having taken and burned a part of the fleet, which in the
hurry and confusion had been stranded, returned victorious. Cleonymus,
having met success in no part of the Adriatic sea, departed with
scarce a fifth part of his navy remaining. Many, now alive, have seen
the beaks of his ships, and the spoils of the Lacedaemonians, hanging
in the old temple of Juno. In commemoration of this event, there is
exhibited at Patavium, every year, on its anniversary day, a naval
combat on the river in the middle of the town.

3. A treaty was this year concluded at Rome with the Vestinians, who
solicited friendship. Various causes of apprehension afterwards sprung
up. News arrived, that Etruria was in rebellion; the insurrection
having arisen from the dissensions of the Arretians; for the Cilnian
family having grown exorbitantly powerful, a party, out of envy of
their wealth, had attempted to expel them by force of arms. [Accounts
were also received] that the Marsians held forcible possession of the
lands to which the colony of Carseoli, consisting of four thousand
men, had been sent. By r