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His reason for listening to the overtures of Bomilcar is unknown; perhaps he knew too much of the military situation to believe in his master's ultimate success, and aimed at securing his own territorial power by an appeal to the gratitude of Rome.
While this was being done, a strong division under Hanno, son of Bomilcar, proceeded by forced marches up the stream till they reached a suitable point for crossing, which they found undefended, situated two short days' march above Avignon.
A pestilence carried off most of the African army encamped in the valley of Anapus, with the general Himilco. Bomilcar, the Carthaginian admiral, retreated, rather than fight the Roman fleet. Marcellus obtained, by the treachery of a Sicilian captain, possession of the island of Ortygia, where Dionysius had once intrenched himself, the key to the port and the city, and Syracuse fell.
But he had not his associate's motive for hasty execution; and when Bomilcar warned him that the time had come, his mind was appalled by the magnitude of a deed that had only been prefigured in an ambiguous and uncertain shape. The time for meeting came and passed. Bomilcar was in an agony of impatient fear.
That it would have been possible for a Phoenician fleet of any desired strength to effect a landing at Locri or Croton, especially as long as the port of Syracuse remained open to the Carthaginians and the fleet at Brundisium was kept in check by Macedonia, is shown by the unopposed disembarkation at Locri of 4000 Africans, whom Bomilcar about this time brought over from Carthage to Hannibal, and still more by Hannibal's undisturbed embarkation, when all had been already lost.
The latter on its eastern side extended to a point at no great distance from the river; and according to the original scheme of the ambush the function assigned to Bomilcar must have been that of executing a turning movement which would prevent the Roman forces from gaining the stream.
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