Since, therefore, it was a convenient rendezvous for the allies and a favourable site for attacking enemy and defending friendly territory, he was very anxious to get the island into his hands.
Observing that all the other parts of the city were surrounded either by the sea or by cliffs, and that the only little piece of level ground was on the side facing Zacynthus, he decided to throw up works and open the siege here.
While the king was thus occupied, fifteen boats arrived from Scerdilaïdas, who had been prevented from sending the major part of his fleet owing to plots and disturbances among the city despots throughout <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Illyria&groupId=647&placeId=1186">Illyria</a>,
and there came also the contingents ordered from Epirus, <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Acarnania&groupId=270&placeId=527">Acarnania</a>, and Messene;
for now that <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Phigaleia&groupId=886&placeId=1597">Phigaleia</a> had been taken, the Messenians had no longer any hesitation in taking part in the war.
All being now ready for the siege, the king placed his balistae and catapults at the proper spots for holding back the garrison, and after addressing the Macedonians brought his machines up to the walls and began to open mines under their cover.
The Macedonians worked with such goodwill that about two hundred feet of the wall was soon undermined, and the king now approached the wall and invited the garrison to come to terms.
On their refusal he set fire to the props and brought down all that part of the wall which had been underpinned, upon which he first of all sent forward the peltasts under Leontius, drawing them up in cohorts and ordering them to force their way through the breach.
But Leontius, faithful to his agreement with Apelles, three times in succession deterred the soldiers after they had actually passed the breach from completing the conquest of the city,
and having previously corrupted some of the principal officers and himself making a deliberate exhibition of cowardice on each occasion,
he was finally driven out of the city with considerable loss, although he might easily have overcome the enemy.
The king, when he saw that the commanding officers were playing the coward and a great number of the soldiers were wounded, abandoned the siege and consulted his friends about the next step to be taken.
Walbank Commentary