29.  About the same time, Lucius Quinctius got possession of the towns on the sea-coast; of some, by their voluntary surrender; of others, by fear or force.  Then, learning that the Lacedaemonians made Gythium the repository of all their naval stores, and that the Roman camp was at no great distance from the sea, he resolved to attack that town with his whole force.  It was, at that time, a place of considerable strength; well furnished with great numbers of native inhabitants and settlers from other parts, and with every kind of warlike stores.  Very seasonably for Quinctius, when commencing an enterprise of no easy nature, king Eumenes and the Rhodian fleet came to his assistance.  The vast multitude of seamen, collected out of the three fleets, finished in a few days all the works requisite for the siege of a city so strongly fortified, both on the land side and on that next the sea.  Covered galleries were soon brought up; the wall was undermined, and, at the same time, shaken with battering rams.  By the frequent shocks given with these, one of the towers was thrown down, and, by its fall, the adjoining wall on each side was laid flat.  The Romans, on this, attempted to force in, both on the side next the port, to which the approach was more level than to the rest, hoping to divert the enemy’s attention from the more open passage, and, at the same time, to enter the breach caused by the falling of the wall.  They were near effecting their design of penetrating into the town, when the assault was suspended by the prospect which was held out of the surrender of the city.  This however, was subsequently dissipated.  Dexagoridas and Gorgopas commanded there, with equal authority.  Dexagoridas had sent to the Roman general a message that he would give up the city; and, after the time and the mode of proceeding had been agreed on, he was slain as a traitor by Gorgopas, and the defence of the city was maintained with redoubled vigour by this single commander.  The further prosecution of the siege would have been much more difficult, had not Titus Quinctius arrived with a body of four thousand chosen men.  He showed his army in order of battle, on the brow of a hill at a small distance from the city; and, on the other side, Lucius Quinctius plied the enemy hard with his engines, both on the quarter of the sea, and of the land; on which Gorgopas was compelled to adopt that proceeding, which, in the case of another, he had punished with death.  After stipulating for liberty to carry away the soldiers whom he had there as a garrison, he surrendered the city to Quinctius.  Previous to the surrender of Gythium, Pythagoras, who had been left as commander at Argos, having intrusted the defence of the city to Timocrates of Pellene, with a thousand mercenary soldiers, and two thousand Argives, came to Lacedaemon and joined Nabis.