The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03

by Unknown

In Thrace, Sitalces, king of an immense realm, came to the aid of Athens against the double-dealing Macedonian king, Perdiccas. He invaded Macedonia and the Chalcidian territory, and voyaged far and wide until the severity of winter and the failure of Athenian aid led him to retire.

Meanwhile, the Spartans had tried to wrest the Ionian Sea from Athens. Their expedition against Cephallenia and Zacynthus in 430 B.C. had failed, but now a powerful horde was gathered against Acarnania. Sparta sent a thousand hoplites under the admiral Cnemus. Corinth, Leucadia, Anactorium, and Ambracia furnished troops, and other bodies came from barbaric Epirots and Macedonian tribes otherwise obscure, including 1000 Chaonians, 1000 Orestæ besides Thesprotians, Molossians, Atintanes, and Paravæi. Even the Macedonian king, Perdiccas, a professed ally of Athens, sent 1000 Macedonians. These arrived, however, too late; fortunately for them, since the troops, without waiting for the fleet, marched against the Acarnanian city of Stratus in such disorderly pride that they fell into ambush, and, after a chaotic retreat, dispersed.

The fleet which was to have collaborated in the campaign hoped to evade the vigilance of the Athenian fleet as Cnemus had done, but the imperial fleet was under the command of the great and cunning Phormion, who was not deterred from attack by inferiority of numbers. Interesting naval chess-play followed.[a]

Now the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates coming from the Crissæan Bay, which ought to have joined Cnemus, in order to prevent the Acarnanians on the coast from succouring their countrymen in the interior, did not do so; but they were compelled, about the same time as the battle was fought at Stratus, to come to an engagement with Phormion and the twenty Athenian vessels that kept guard at Naupactus. For Phormion kept watching them as they coasted along out of the gulf, wishing to attack them in the open sea. But the Corinthians and the allies were not sailing to Acarnania with any intention to fight by sea, but were equipped more for land service. When, however, they saw them sailing along opposite to them, as they themselves proceeded along their own coast, and on attempting to cross over from Patræ in Achaia to the mainland opposite, on their way to Acarnania observed the Athenians sailing against them from Chalcis and the river Evenus (for they had not escaped their observation when they had endeavoured to bring to secretly during the night); under these circumstances they were compelled to engage in the mid passage. They had separate commanders for the contingents of the different states that joined the armament, but those of the Corinthians were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharcidas.

And now the Peloponnesians ranged their ships in a circle, as large as they could without leaving any opening, with their prows turned outward and their sterns inward; and placed inside all the small craft that accompanied them, and their five best sailers, to advance out quickly and strengthen any point on which the enemy might make his attack.

On the other hand, the Athenians, ranged in a single line, kept sailing round them, and reducing them into a smaller compass; continually brushing past them, and making demonstrations of an immediate onset; though they had previously been commanded by Phormion not to attack them till he himself gave the signal. For he hoped that their order would not be maintained like that of a land-force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of each other, and that the other craft would cause confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf, in expectation of which he was sailing round them, and which usually rose towards morning, that they would not remain steady an instant. He thought, too, that it rested with him to make the attack, whenever he pleased, as his ships were the better sailers; and that then would be the best time for making it. So when the wind came down upon them, and their ships, being now brought into a narrow compass, were thrown into confusion by the operation of both causes—the violence of the wind, and the small craft dashing against them—and when ship was falling foul of ship, and the crews were pushing them off with poles, and in their shouting, and trying to keep clear, and abusing each other, did not hear a word either of their orders or the boatswains’ directions; while, through inexperience, they could not lift their oars in the swell of the sea, and so rendered the vessels less obedient to the helmsmen; just then, at that favourable moment, he gave the signal.

And the Athenians attacked them, and first of all sank one of the admiral-ships, then destroyed all wherever they went, and reduced them to such a condition, that owing to their confusion none of them thought of resistance, but they fled to Patræ and Dyme, in Achaia. The Athenians having closely pursued them, and taken twelve ships, picking up most of the men from them, and putting them on board their own vessels, sailed off to Molycrium; and after erecting a trophy at Rhium, and dedicating a ship to Neptune, they returned to Naupactus. The Peloponnesians also immediately coasted along with their remaining ships from Dyme and Patræ to Cyllene, the arsenal of the Eleans; and Cnemus and the ships that were at Leucas, which were to have formed a junction with these, came thence, after the battle of Stratus, to the same port.

Then the Lacedæmonians sent to the fleet, as counsellors to Cnemus, Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron; commanding him to make preparations for a second engagement more successful than the former, and not to be driven off the sea by a few ships. For the result appeared very different from what they might have expected (particularly as it was the first sea-fight they had attempted); and they thought that it was not so much their fleet that was inferior, but that there had been some cowardice; for they did not weigh the long experience of the Athenians against their own short practice of naval matters. They despatched them, therefore, in anger; and on their arrival they sent round, in conjunction with Cnemus, orders for ships to be furnished by the different states, while they refitted those they already had, with a view to an engagement. Phormion, too, on the other hand, sent messengers to Athens to acquaint them with their preparations, and to tell them of the victory they had gained; at the same time desiring them to send him quickly the largest possible number of ships, for he was in daily expectation of an immediate engagement. They despatched to him twenty; but gave additional orders to the commander of them to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortyn, who was their proxenus, persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, telling them that he would reduce it under their power; for it was at present hostile to them. His object, however, in calling them in was, that he might oblige the Polichnitæ, who bordered on the Cydonians. The commander, therefore, of the squadron went with it to Crete, and in conjunction with the Polichnitæ laid waste the territory of the Cydonians; and wasted no little time in the country, owing to adverse winds and the impossibility of putting to sea.

During the time that the Athenians were thus detained on the coast of Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene, having made their preparations for an engagement, coasted along to Panormus in Achaia, where the land-force of the Peloponnesians had come to support them. Phormion, too, coasted along to the Rhium near Molycrium, and dropped anchor outside of it, with twenty ships, the same as he had before fought with. This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians; the other, namely, that in the Peloponnesus, is opposite to it; the distance between the two being about seven stadia of sea, which forms the mouth of the Crissæan Gulf. At the Rhium in Achaia, then, being not far from Panormus, where their land-force was, the Peloponnesians also came to anchor with seventy-seven ships, when they saw that the Athenians had done the same. And for six or seven days they lay opposite each other, practising and preparing for the battle; the Peloponnesians intending not to sail beyond the Rhia into the open sea, for they were afraid of a disaster like the former; the Athenians, not to sail into the straits, for they thought that fighting in a confined space was in favour of the enemy.