He never allowed his fleets to go to sea to seek battle.
The two fleets met south of Cape Scropha, both drawn up from north to south, the land being close to the left flank of the Christians, and the right of the Turks.
The Ptolemies continued to send fleets annually from their Red Sea ports of Berenice and Myos Hormus to Arabia, as well as to ports on the coasts of Africa and India.
In the 16th century the city was the strongest Spanish fortress in the New World, excepting Cartagena, and gold and silver were brought hither by ship from Peru and were carried across the Isthmus to Chagres, but as Spain's fleets even in the Pacific were more and more often attacked in the 17th century, Panama became less important, though it was still the chief Spanish port on the Pacific. In 1671 the city was destroyed by Henry Morgan, the buccaneer; it was rebuilt in 1673 by Alfonzo Mercado de Villacorta about five miles west of the old site and nearer the roadstead.
This something more consisted, at least in part, of the arrangement, with the help of Austria and Germany, of an Anglo-Italian naval understanding having special reference to the Eastern question, but providing for common action by the British and Italian fleets in the Mediterranean in case of war.
