Marcellus, master of Fort Euryale, garrisoned it and no longer had to fear that a large force introduced into the citadel would surprise his soldiers from behind and attack them within an enclosure of walls, which did not allow them to develop. Then he invests Achradine by means of three favorably placed camps, hoping to reduce the besieged by an absolute scarcity. For a few days they kept quiet on both sides; but the arrival of Hippocrates and Himilcon caused the Romans to be suddenly assailed from all sides. Hippocrates had come to camp near the great port; and from there, giving the signal to the garrison which occupied Achradine, he attacked the ancient camp of the Romans, where Crispinus commanded, while Epicydes made a sortie against the advanced posts of Marcellus; the Carthaginian fleet was also approaching the shore, between the city and the Roman camp, to make it impossible for Marcellus to send help to Crispinus. However, the alarm given by the enemies was livelier than the combat; Crispinus not only repelled Hippocrates' attack, he put him to flight and pursued him. As for Marcellus, he drove Epicydes back into the city, and he seemed henceforth safe from a sudden excursion.
To the evils of war was added a contagious disease which, striking both parties, obliged them to suspend hostilities. The excessive heat of autumn and the insalubrity of the country had, in both camps, but much more so outside than inside the city, caused an almost general epidemic. First the autumn weather and the bad air brought fatal diseases; soon the very care given to the sick and their contact spread the contagion:it was necessary either to let them perish without help and without consolation, or to breathe, while watching near them, pestilential vapors. We had only death and funerals before our eyes every day, we heard day and night only groans. a just tribute of tears and pain, but that they were even neglected to remove and bury them. The ground was strewn with corpses lying under the eyes of those who awaited the same fate; fear, the fetid odor of the dead and dying hastened the end of the sick and infected those who were not. Some, preferring to die by iron, went alone to attack the enemy posts.
However, the plague made more devastation in the camp of the Carthaginians than in that of the Romans, which a long siege had acclimatized. The Sicilians who served in the enemy army, seeing that this contagion came from the insalubrity of the place, hastened to regain their towns, fairly close to Syracuse; but the Carthaginians, who had no other refuge, all perished to the last, with their chiefs Hippocrates and Himilcon. The scourge redoubled in fury, Marcellus marched his soldiers through the city, where cover and shade gave some relief to their feeble bodies. However, this evil kidnapped many people in the Roman army.