Putting all the statements of Thucydidês together, we may be convinced that this is the way in which the facts occurred. But of the precise sense of ὐφορμισάμενοι, I confess I do not feel certain: Haack says, it means “clam appellere ad littus,” but here, I think, that sense will not do: for the Peloponnesians did not wish, and could indeed hardly hope, to conceal from Phormio the spot where they brought to for the night, and to make him suppose that they brought to at some point of the shore west of Patræ, when in reality they passed the night in Patræ,—which is what Dr. Arnold supposes. The shore west of Patræ makes a bend to the southwest,—forming the gulf of Patras,—so that the distance from the northern, or Ætolian and Akarnanian, side of the gulf becomes for a considerable time longer and longer, and the Peloponnesians would thus impose upon themselves a longer crossing, increasing the difficulty of getting over without a battle. But ὐφορμισάμενοι may reasonably be supposed to mean, especially in conjunction with οὐκ ἔλαθον, “taking up a simulated or imperfect night-station,” in which they did not really intend to stay all night, and which could be quitted at short notice and with ease. The preposition ὑπὸ, in composition, would thus have the sense, not of secrecy (clam) but of sham-performance, or of mere going through the forms of an act for the purpose of making a false impression (like ὑποφέρειν, Xenoph. Hell. iv, 72). Mr. Bloomfield proposes conjecturally ἀφορμισάμενοι, meaning, “that the Peloponnesians slipped their anchors in the night:” I place no faith in the conjecture, but I believe him to be quite right in supposing, that the Peloponnesians did actually slip their anchors in the night.
Another point remains to be adverted to. The battle took place κατὰ μέσον τὸν πορθμόν. Now we need not understand this expression to allude to the narrowest part of the sea, or the strait, strictly and precisely; that is, the line of seven stadia between Rhium and Antirrhium. But I think we must understand it to mean a portion of sea not far westward of the strait, where the breadth, though greater than that of the strait itself, is yet not so great as it becomes in the line drawn northward from Patræ. We cannot understand πορθμὸς (as Mr. Bloomfield and Poppo do,—see the note of the latter on the Scholia) to mean trajectus simply, that is to say, the passage across even the widest portion of the gulf of Patras: nor does the passage cited out of c. 86 require us so to understand it. Πορθμὸς, in Thucydidês, means a strait, or narrow crossing of sea, and Poppo himself admits that Thucydidês always uses it so: nor would it be reasonable to believe that he would call the line of sea across the gulf, from Patræ to the mouth of the Euenus, a πορθμός. See the note of Göller, on this point.
[340] Thucyd. ii, 86. μὴ δíδοντες διέκπλουν. The great object of the fast-sailing Athenian trireme was, to drive its beak against some weak part of the adversary’s ship: the stern, the side, or the oars,—not against the beak, which was strongly constructed as well for defence as for offence. The Athenian, therefore, rowing through the intervals of the adversary’s line, and thus getting in their rear, turned rapidly, and got the opportunity, before the ship of the adversary could change its position, of striking it either in the stern or some weak part. Such a manœuvre was called the diekplus. The success of it, of course, depended upon the extreme rapidity and precision of the movements of the Athenian vessel, so superior in this respect to its adversary, not only in the better construction of the ship, but the excellence of rowers and steersmen.
[341] See Dr. Arnold’s note upon this passage of Thucydidês, respecting the keleustês and his functions: to the passages which he indicates as reference, I will add two more of Plautus, Mercat. iv, 2, 5, and Asinaria, iii, 1, 15.
When we conceive the structure of an ancient trireme, we shall at once see, first, how essential the keleustês was, to keep the rowers in harmonious action,—next, how immense the difference must have been between practised and unpractised rowers. The trireme had, in all, one hundred and seventy rowers, distributed into three tiers. The upper tier, called thranitæ, were sixty-two in number, or thirty-one on each side: the middle tier, or zygitæ, as well as the lowest tier, or thalamitæ, were each fifty-four in number, or twenty-seven on each side. Besides these, there were belonging to each trireme a certain number, seemingly about thirty, of supplementary oars (κῶπαι περινέω), to be used by the epibatæ, or soldiers, serving on board, in case of rowers being killed, or oars broken. Each tier of rowers was distributed along the whole length of the vessel, from head to stern, or at least along the greater part of it; but the seats of the higher tiers were not placed in the exact perpendicular line above the lower. Of course, the oars of the thranitæ, or uppermost tier, were the longest: those of the thalamitæ, or lowest tier, the shortest: those of the zygitæ, of a length between the two. Each oar was rowed only by one man. The thranitæ, as having the longest oars, were most hardly worked and most highly paid. What the length of the oars was, belonging to either tier, we do not know, but some of the supplementary oars appear to have been about fifteen feet in length.
What is here stated, appears to be pretty well ascertained, chiefly from the inscriptions discovered at Athens a few years ago, so full of information respecting the Athenian marine,—and from the most instructive commentary appended to these inscriptions by M. Boeckh, Seewesen der Athener, ch. ix, pp. 94, 104, 115. But there is a great deal still, respecting the equipment of an ancient trireme, unascertained and disputed.
Now there was nothing but the voice of the keleustês to keep these one hundred and seventy rowers all to good time with their strokes. With oars of different length, and so many rowers, this must have been no easy matter, and apparently quite impossible, unless the rowers were trained to act together. The difference between those who were so trained and those who were not, must have been immense. We may imagine the difference between the ships of Phormio and those of his enemies, and the difficulty of the latter in contending with the swell of the sea,—when we read this description of the ancient trireme.
About two hundred men, that is to say, one hundred and seventy rowers and thirty supernumeraries, mostly epibatæ or hoplites serving on board, besides the pilot, the man at the ship’s bow, the keleustês, etc., probably some half dozen officers, formed the crew of a trireme: compare Herodot. viii, 17; vii, 184, where he calculates the thirty epibatæ over and above the two hundred. Dr. Arnold thinks that, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the epibatæ on board an Athenian trireme were no more than ten: but this seems not quite made out: see his note on Thucyd. iii, 95.
The Venetian galleys in the thirteenth century were manned by about the same number of men. “Les galères Vénitiens du convoi de Flandre devaient être montées par deux cent hommes libres, dont 180 rameurs, et 12 archers. Les arcs ou balistes furent préscrits en 1333 pour toutes les galères de commerce armées.” (Depping, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l’Europe, vol. i, p. 163.)
[342] Thucyd. ii, 84.