During the night, Menelaus gathered flammable material and was able to set the largest siege engines on fire. In the meantime, in response to his brother's appeals, Ptolemy himself had sailed from Alexandria at the head of his fleet. He arrived at Paphus, on the western coast of Cyprus, at the head of 140 warships, all quadriremes and quinqueremes, and of over 10,000 men on 200 transports. According to Plutarch, Ptolemy issued an ultimatum to Demetrius to leave Cyprus, while the latter countered with the offer that he would do so, if Ptolemy were to withdraw his garrisons from the cities of Sicyon and Corinth in Greece. Ptolemy decided to try to make a night dash from Citium, round Cape Greko, to Salamis, hoping to surprise Demetrius and combine his fleet with his brother’s sixty ships so they could then outnumber Demetrius. Demetrius, however, informed of Ptolemy's arrival, took steps in order to prevent this from happening: he equipped his ships with missile-throwers, brought aboard his best troops as marines, and sailed his fleet to anchor just outside the harbour of the city, bottling up Menelaus in the harbour and interposing himself between the two enemy fleets. This meant that Demetrius took a calculated risk that he would be able to defeat Ptolemy before Menelaus could sail out of the harbour and attack him in the rear. The naval combat before Salamis As Ptolemy's fleet came into view of the city right after dawn on the day of the battle, they found Demetrius' fleet deployed and waiting for them. His fleet augmented to some 180 vessels with ships captured in Cyprus, Demetrius concentrated the bulk against Ptolemy, leaving only 10 quinqueremes under Antisthenes to blockade the narrow exit of the harbour of Salamis and prevent or at least delay Menelaus' intervention. Demetrius had gathered his best ships—the seven Phoenician heptereis, the Athenian squadron, and behind them 10 hexereis and 10 quinqueremes—on the left, under command of the admiral Medius of Larissa. Medius was apparently the actual overall commander of the fleet, although Demetrius himself was also present on the left wing on his flagship, a hepteres. His centre comprised the lightest vessels in his fleet, under the command of Themison of Samos and Marsyas of Pella, while the right was entrusted to Hegesippus of Halicarnassus and Pleistias of Cos, the chief pilot (archikybernetes, the second-in-command after Medius) of the fleet.