History of the Peloponnesian War

As it was, however, the following occurrence is also said to have favoured them; a heavy rain and thunder-storm came on, and quenched the flame; and so the danger ceased.

When the Peloponnesians had failed in this attempt also, they left behind them a certain part of their force, [having disbanded the rest,] and proceeded to raise a wall of circumvallation round the town, dividing the whole extent amongst the contingents of the different states. There was a ditch, too, both inside and outside of the lines, from which they made their bricks.

All being finished by about the rising of Arcturus, they left troops to man half the extent of the wall, (the other half being manned by the Boeotians,) and retired with their army, and dispersed to their different cities.

Now the Plataeans had previously carried out of the town to Athens their children, and wives, and oldest men, and the mass of the inhabitants that would be of no service; but the men themselves who were left in the place and stood the siege, amounted to four hundred, with eighty Athenians, and one hundred and ten women to make bread for them.

This was the total number of them when they began to be besieged, and there was no one else within the walls, either bond or free. Such was the provision made for the siege of Plataea.

The same summer, and at the same time as the expedition was made against the Plataeans, the Athenians marched with two thousand heavy-armed of their own, and two hundred horse, against the Thrace-ward Chalcidians, and the Bottiaeans, when the corn was ripe, under the command of Xenophon son of Euripides, and two colleagues.

On arriving under the walls of Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the corn; and expected that the town would also surrender to them, through the intrigues of a party within. Those, however, who did not wish this, having sent to Olynthus, a body of heavy-armed and other troops came as a garrison for the place;

and on their making a sally from it, the Athenians met them in battle close to the town. The heavy-armed of the Chalcidians, and some auxiliaries with them, were defeated by the Athenians, and retired into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian horse and light-armed defeated the horse and light-armed of the Athenians.

They had [from the first] some few targeteers from the district of Crusis, as it is called; and when the battle had just been fought, others joined them from Olynthus.

When the light-armed from Spartolus saw these, being encouraged by the accession to their force, and by the fact that they were not worsted before, in conjunction with the Chalcidian horse and the late reinforcement they attacked the Athenians again; who retired to the two divisions they had left with the baggage.

Whenever the Athenians advanced against them, they gave way; but on their beginning to retreat, they pressed them close, and harassed them with their darts. The cavalry of the Chalcidians also rode up and charged them wherever they pleased;

and having struck the greatest panic into them, routed and pursued them to a great distance. The Athenians fled for refuge to Potidaea, and having subsequently recovered their dead by truce, returned to Athens with the remnant of the army; four hundred and thirty of them having been killed, and all the generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans erected a trophy, and after taking up their dead, separated to their different cities.

Tile same summer, not long after these events, the Ambraciots and Chaonians wishing to subdue the whole of Acarnania, and to separate it from its connexion with Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their confederacy, and to send one thousand heavy-armed to Acarnania; saying that if they were to join them with both a naval and land force, while the Acarnanians on the coast were unable to succour [their countrymen], after gaining possession of Acarnania, they would easily make themselves masters of Zacynthus and Cephallenia; and so the Athenians would no longer find the circumnavigation of the Peloponnese what it had hitherto been. They suggested too that there was a hope of taking Naupactus also.

Being thus persuaded, the Lacedaemonians despatched immediately Cnemus, who was still high-admiral, and the heavy-armed on board a few vessels; while they sent round orders for the fleet to prepare as quickly as possible, and sail to Leucas.

Now the Corinthians were most hearty in the cause of the Ambraciots, who were a colony of theirs; and the squadrons from Corinth and Sicyon, and those parts were in preparation; while those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia had arrived before, and were waiting for them at Leucas.

In the mean time Cnemus and the one thousand heavy-armed with him had effected a passage unobserved by Phormio, who commanded the twenty Athenian ships that kept guard off Naupactus; and they immediately prepared for the expedition by land. There were with him, of the Greeks, the Ambraciots, Leucadians, Anactorians, and his own force of one thousand Peloponnesians;

of the barbarians, one thousand Chaonians, who were not under kingly government, but who were led by Photys and Nicanor, of the family to which the chieftainship was confined, with a yearly exercise of that power. With the Chaonians some Thesprotians also joined the expedition, being [like them] not under kingly government.

Some Molossians and Atintanians were led by Sabylinthus, as guardian of Tharypus, their king, who was yet a minor; and some Paravaeans by Oroedus their king. One thousand of the Orestians, of whom Antiochus was king, accompanied the Paravaeans, Oroedus being intrusted with the command of them by that monarch.

Perdiccas also, without the knowledge of the Athenians, sent one thousand Macedonians, who arrived too late.

With this force Cnemus commenced his march, without waiting the arrival of the fleet from Corinth: and in their passage through the Argive country they sacked Limnaea, an unfortified village; and then went against Stratus, the capital city of Acarnania, thinking that if they took that first, the other towns would readily surrender to them.

The Acarnanians, finding that a large army had invaded them by land, and that the enemy would also be upon them with a fleet by sea, did not prepare to make any united resistance, but to defend their own separate possessions; while they sent to Phormio, and desired him to succour them; who, however, said that it was impossible for him to leave Naupactus unprotected, while a fleet was on the point of sailing out from Corinth.

So the Peloponnesians and their allies, having formed themselves into three divisions, were advancing to the city of Stratus;

that after encamping near to it, they might attempt the wall by force, if they could not prevail on them [to surrender] by words. As they advanced, the Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians occupied the centre; the Leucadians and Anactorians, and those with them, were on their right; and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on their left: but they were at a considerable distance from each other, and sometimes not even within sight.

The Greeks advanced in good order, and keeping a look-out, until they had encamped in a convenient position; but the Chaonians, confident in themselves, and being reputed by the inhabitants of those parts of the continent to be the most warlike tribe, did not wait to take up their position, but rushing on with the rest of the barbarians thought they should take the town at the first assault, and so the achievement would be all their own.

The Stratians, informed of this while they were yet coming on, and thinking that if they could defeat them while thus by themselves, the Greeks would not attack them with the same eagerness, laid an ambush near the walls; and when they had come near, attacked them in close combat, both from the town and from the ambuscade.

Being thrown into consternation, great numbers of the Chaonians were slain; and when the rest of the barbarians saw them giving way, they no longer stood their ground, but took to flight.

Now neither of the Greek divisions was aware of the battle, as their confederates had proceeded far in advance, and had been supposed to be hurrying on to occupy their encampment.

But when the barbarians broke in upon them in their flight, they rallied them; and after uniting their separate divisions. remained there quiet during the day; as the Stratians did not come to close quarters with them, because the rest of the Acarnanians had not arrived to help them; but annoyed them with their slings from a distance, and distressed them, (for it was impossible for them to stir without their armour,) the Acarnanians being considered to excel very much in this mode of warfare.

When night came on, Cnemus retired as quickly as he could with his army to the river Anapus, which is eighty stades distant from Stratus, and the next day recovered his dead by truce; and the $Oeniadae having joined him, on the ground of a friendly connexion, he fell back upon that city before the reinforcements of the enemy had arrived. Thence they departed to their respective homes; while the Stratians erected a trophy for the result of their engagement with the barbarians.

Now the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates coming from the Crisaean 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 Phormio and the twenty Athenian vessels that kept guard at Naupactus.

For Phormio 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 Patrae 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 Phormio 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 better sailers [than those opposed to him];

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 sunk 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 Patrae 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 Patrae 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 at Stratus, to the same port.

Then the Lacedaemonians 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 [on the part of the admiral]; 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.

Phormio too, on the other hand, sent messengers to Athens to acquaint them with their preparations, and to tell them of the victory they had [themselves] gained; at the same time desiring them to send him quickly the largest possible number of ships, for lie 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 Gortys, 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 Polichnitae, who bordered on the Cydonians.

The commander therefore of the squadron went with it to Crete, and in conjunction with the Polichnitae 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 Achaea, where the land-force of the Peloponnesians had come to support them.

Phormio, 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 Peloponnese, is opposite to it; the distance between the two being about seven stades of sea, which forms the mouth of the Crisaean Gulf.

At the Rhium in Achaea, 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 bought that fighting in a confined space was in favour of the enemy.

Afterwards Cnemus, and Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders, wishing to bring on the engagement as quickly as they could, before any reinforcement came from Athens, assembled the men first; and seeing the greater part of them frightened in consequence of their former defeat, and not eager for the battle, they cheered them by speaking as follows:

The late sea-fight, Peloponnesians, if owing to it any one be afraid of this before us, affords no just grounds for his alarm. For it was deficient, as you know, in preparation;

and we were sailing not so much for a naval engagement as for a land expedition. It happened too that not a few of the chances of war were against us; while partly, perhaps, our inexperience caused our failure, as it was our first battle by sea. It was not then through our cowardice that we experienced the defeat;

nor is it right that our spirits, which were not crushed by force, but still retain a measure of defiance to the enemy, should lose their edge from the result of that mishap. We should rather think, that men may indeed be overthrown by mere chances, but that in spirit the same men ought always to be brave; and that while their courage remains, they cannot reasonably on any occasion act like cowards under the cloak of inexperience.

In your case, however, you are not so far inferior to the enemy, even through your inexperience, as you are superior to him in daring. As for their skill, of which you are most afraid, if indeed it be joined with courage, it will also be accompanied with presence of mind in danger to execute what it has learned; but without gallantry no art whatever is of any avail in the face of perils. For fear banishes presence of mind; and art without bravery is good for nothing.

Against their greater experience then put your own greater daring; against your fear in consequence of your defeat put the fact of your having then been unprepared;

and there is in your favour a clear balance of superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast in the presence of your heavy-armed; and victory, generally speaking, declares for those who are the more numerous and better appointed.

On no one single ground then do we find it probable that we should be defeated. As for the blunders we committed before, the very fact of their having been committed will now teach us a lesson.

With good courage, therefore, both steersmen and sailors, do every man your own duty, without leaving the post assigned to each.

And we will prepare for the engagement not worse than your former commanders; and will give no one any excuse for being a coward: but if any one should wish to be one, he shall be visited with the punishment he deserves; while the brave shall be honoured with the rewards befitting their bravery.

Such was the exhortation given to the Peloponnesians by their commanders. Phormio, on the other hand, being also alarmed at the apprehensions of his men, and perceiving that they formed in groups amongst themselves, and showed their fears of the superior numbers of the ships opposed to them, wished to assemble and cheer them, and offer them some advice at the present juncture.

For before this he always used to tell them, and prepare their minds for the conviction, that there was no number of ships whatever so great that they ought not to face it, if it sailed against them; and his men had for a long time entertained this resolution, that from no multitude of Peloponnesian ships whatever would they, Athenians as they were, retire.

Seeing them, however, at that time out of spirits, he wished to remind them of their former confidence, and therefore called them together, and addressed them as follows:

Seeing you, my men, alarmed at the numbers of your opponents, I have called you together; as I do not wish you to be in dread of what is not really to be feared.

For these men, in the first place, because they have been previously conquered by us, and do not even themselves think that they are a match for us, have equipped this great number of ships, and not such as would be merely equal to ours. Then, for the fact on which they chiefly rely in coming against us—that it is their natural character to be courageous—they feel this confidence for no other reason than because they are generally successful owing to their experience in land-service;

and they think it will do the same for them at sea. But this, in all reason, will rather be our advantage now, as it is theirs in that case: for in valour they are not at all superior to us;

but from our being respectively more experienced in one particular service, we are also more confident respecting it. Moreover, the Lacedaemonians lead their allies from regard to their own glory, and bring the greater part of them into dangers against their will;

else, [without such compulsion,] they would have never dared to fight again by sea, after being so decidedly beaten. Do not then be afraid of their boldness. It is you that cause them a much greater and better-founded alarm, both on the ground of your having previously conquered them, and because they think we should not have faced them if we did not mean to do something worthy our decisive victory.

For when equal to their opponents, men generally come against them, as these do, trusting to their power rather than to their spirit; but those who dare to meet them with far inferior resources, and yet without being compelled, do so because they have the strong assurance of their own resolution.

From this consideration these men fear us more for the inequality of our preparations, than they would have done for more proportionate ones. Many armies, too, have ere now been overthrown by an inferior force through want of skill, and others through want of daring;

with neither of which have we now any thing to do. As for the battle, I will not, if I can help, fight it in the strait; nor will I sail in there at all; being aware that for a few skilfully managed and fast-sailing vessels, against a large number unskilfully managed, want of sea-room is a disadvantage. For one could neither sail up as he ought to the charge, without having a view of the enemy from a distance; nor retire at the proper time, if hard-pressed; and there is no breaking through the line, nor returning to a second charge—which are the manoeuvres of the better-sailing vessels—but the sea-fight must in that case become a land-fight; and then the greater number of ships gain the superiority.