ore compelled to shut himself
up in the harbour of Ephesus. As he declined the offered naval
battle, and as, owing to the small numbers of the Roman force, an
attack by land was not to be thought of, nothing remained for the
Roman fleet but to take up its position in like manner at Samos. A
division meanwhile proceeded to Patara on the Lycian coast, partly to
relieve the Rhodians from the very troublesome attacks that were
directed against them from that quarter, partly and chiefly to prevent
the hostile fleet, which Hannibal was expected to bring up, from
entering the Aegean Sea. When the squadron sent against Patara
achieved nothing, the new admiral Lucius Aemilius Regillus, who had
arrived with 20 war-vessels from Rome and had relieved Gaius Livius at
Samos, was so indignant that he proceeded thither with the whole
fleet; his officers with difficulty succeeded, while they were on
their voyage, in making him understand that the primary object was not
the conquest of Patara but the command of the Aegean Sea, and in
inducing him to return to Samos. On the mainland of Asia Minor
Seleucus had in the meanwhile begun the siege of Pergamus, while
Antiochus with his chief army ravaged the Pergamene territory and the
possessions of the Mytilenaeans on the mainland; they hoped to crush
the hated Attalids, before Roman aid appeared. The Roman fleet went
to Elaea and the port of Adramytium to help their ally; but, as the
admiral wanted troops, he accomplished nothing. Pergamus seemed lost;
but the laxity and negligence with which the siege was conducted
allowed Eumenes to throw into the city Achaean auxiliaries under
Diophanes, whose bold and successful sallies compelled the Gallic
mercenaries, whom Antiochus had entrusted with the siege, to raise it.

In the southern waters too the projects of Antiochus were frustrated.
The fleet equipped and led by Hannibal, after having been long
detained by the constant westerly winds, attempted at length to reach
the Aegean; but at the mouth of the Eurymedon, off Aspendus in
Pamphylia, it encountered a Rhodian squadron under Eudamus; and in the
battle, which ensued between the two fleets, the excellence of the
Rhodian ships and naval officers carried the victory over Hannibal's
tactics and his numerical superiority. It was the first naval battle,
and the last battle against Rome, fought by the great Carthaginian.
The victorious Rhodian fleet then took its station at Patara, and
there