Now when the Athenians did not sail into the narrow part of the gulf to meet them, the Peloponnesians, wishing to lead them on even against their will, weighed in the morning, and having formed their ships in a column four abreast, sailed to their own land towards the inner part of the gulf, with the right wing taking the lead, in which position also they lay at anchor. In this wing they had placed their twenty best sailers; that if Phormion, supposing them to be sailing against Naupactus, should himself also coast along in that direction to relieve the place, the Athenians might not, by getting outside their wing, escape their advance against them, but that these ships might shut them in. As they expected, he was alarmed for the place in its unprotected state; and when he saw them under weigh, against his will, and in great haste too, he embarked his crews and sailed along shore; while the land-forces of the Messenians at the same time came to support him. When the Peloponnesians saw them coasting along in a single file, and already within the gulf and near the shore (which was just what they wished), at one signal they suddenly brought their ships round and sailed in a line, as fast as each could, against the Athenians, hoping to cut off all their ships. Eleven of them, however, which were taking the lead, escaped the wing of the Peloponnesians and their sudden turn into the open gulf; but the rest they surprised, and drove them on shore, in their attempt to escape, and destroyed them, killing such of the crews as had not swum out of them. Some of the ships they lashed to their own and began to tow off empty, and one they took men and all; while in the case of some others, the Messenians, coming to their succour, and dashing into the sea with their armour, and boarding them, fought from the decks, and rescued them when they were already being towed off.

To this extent then the Peloponnesians had the advantage, and destroyed the Athenian ships; while their twenty vessels in the right wing were in pursuit of those eleven of the enemy that had just escaped their turn into the open gulf. They, with the exception of one ship, got the start of them and fled for refuge to Naupactus; and facing about, opposite the temple of Apollo, prepared to defend themselves, in case they should sail to shore against them. Presently they came up, and were singing the pæan as they sailed, considering that they had gained the victory; and the one Athenian vessel that had been left behind was chased by a single Leucadian far in advance of the rest. Now there happened to be a merchant vessel moored out at sea, which the Athenian ship had time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in pursuit of her amidship, and sunk her. The Peloponnesians therefore were panic-stricken by this sudden and unlooked-for achievement; and moreover, as they were pursuing in disorder, on account of the advantage they had gained, some of the ships dropped their oars, and stopped in their course, from a wish to wait for the rest—doing what was unadvisable, considering that they were observing each other at so short a distance—while others even ran on the shoals, through their ignorance of the localities.

The Athenians, on seeing this, took courage, and at one word shouted for battle, and rushed upon them. In consequence of their previous blunders and their present confusion, they withstood them but a short time and then fled to Panormus, whence they had put out. The Athenians pursued them closely, and took six of the ships nearest to them, and recovered their own, which the enemy had disabled near the shore and at the beginning of the engagement, and had taken in tow. Of the men, they put some to death, and made others prisoners. Now on board the Leucadian ship, which went down off the merchant vessel, was Timocrates the Lacedæmonian; who, when the ship was destroyed, killed himself, and falling overboard was floated into the harbour of Naupactus. On their return, the Athenians erected a trophy at the spot from which they put out before gaining the victory; and all the dead and the wrecks that were near their coast they took up, and gave back to the enemy theirs under truce. The Peloponnesians also erected a trophy, as victors, for the defeat of the ships they had disabled near the shore; and the ship they had taken they dedicated at Rhium, in Achaia, by the side of the trophy. Afterwards, being afraid of the reinforcement from Athens, all but the Leucadians sailed at the approach of night into the Crissæan Bay and the port of Corinth. Not long after their retreat, the Athenians from Crete arrived at Naupactus, with the twenty ships that were to have joined Phormion before the engagement. And thus ended the summer.

Before, however, the fleet dispersed which had retired to Corinth and the Crissæan Bay, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the rest of the Peloponnesian commanders wished, at the suggestion of the Megarians, to make an attempt upon Piræus, the port of Athens; which, as was natural from their decided superiority at sea, was left unguarded and open. It was determined, therefore, that each man should take his oar, and cushion, and tropoter, and go by land from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens; and that after proceeding as quickly as possible to Megara, they should launch from its port, Nisæa, forty vessels that happened to be there, and sail straightway to Piræus. For there was neither any fleet keeping guard before it, nor any thought of the enemy ever sailing against it in so sudden a manner; and as for their venturing to do it openly and deliberately, they supposed that either they would not think of it, or themselves would not fail to be aware beforehand, if they should. Having adopted this resolution, they proceeded immediately to execute it; and when they had arrived by night, and launched the vessels from Nisæa, they sailed, not against Athens as they had intended, for they were afraid of the risk (some wind or other was also said to have prevented them), but to the headland of Salamis looking towards Megara; where there was a fort, and a guard of three ships to prevent anything from being taken in or out of Megara. So they assaulted the fort, and towed off the triremes empty; and making a sudden attack on the rest of Salamis, they laid it waste.

Now fire signals of an enemy’s approach were raised towards Athens, and a consternation was caused by them not exceeded by any during the whole war. For those in the city imagined that the enemy had already sailed into Piræus; while those in Piræus thought that Salamis had been taken, and that they were all but sailing into their harbours: which indeed, if they would but have not been afraid of it, might easily have been done; and it was not a wind that would have prevented it. But at daybreak the Athenians went all in a body to Piræus to resist the enemy; and launched their ships, and going on board with haste and much uproar, sailed with the fleet to Salamis, while with their land-forces they mounted guard at Piræus. When the Peloponnesians saw them coming to the rescue, after overrunning the greater part of Salamis, and taking both men and booty, and the three ships from the port of Budorum, they sailed for Nisæa as quickly as they could; for their vessels too caused them some alarm, as they had been launched after lying idle a long time, and were not at all water-tight. On their arrival at Megara they returned again to Corinth by land. When the Athenians found them no longer on the coast of Salamis, they also sailed back; and after this alarm they paid more attention in future to the safety of Piræus, both by closing the harbours, and by all other precautions.

[429-428 B.C.]

During this winter, after the fleet of the Peloponnesians had dispersed, the Athenians at Naupactus under the command of Phormion, after coasting along to Astacus, and there disembarking, marched into the interior of Acarnania, with four hundred heavy-armed of the Athenians from the ships and four hundred of the Messenians. From Stratus, Coronta, and some other places, they expelled certain individuals who were thought to be untrue to them; and having restored Cynes, son of Theolytus, to Coronta, returned again to their vessels and sailed home to Athens at the return of spring, taking with them such of the prisoners from the naval battles as were freemen (who were exchanged man for man), and the ships they had captured. And so ended this winter, and the third year of the war.[c]

Bury, following Grote, says, that after this, Phormion “silently drops out of history, and as we find his son Asopius sent out in the following summer at the request of the Acarnanians, we must conclude that his career had been cut short by death”: Duruy says he died in 428 B.C., and that “the city gave him an honourable funeral and placed his tomb beside that of Pericles.” Asopius after failing in an assault on Œniadæ, was killed before Leucas.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[53] [In the words of Thucydides,[c] “Never to desert the Athenians, to bear any devastation of their lands, nay, if such be the case, to behold it with patience, and to suffer any extremities to which their enemies might reduce them; that, further, no person should stir out of the city, but an answer be given from the walls; that it was impossible for them to accept the terms proposed by the Lacedæmonians.”]