![The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War] - Читать Любимую Русскую Полную Книгу 👉 Read-E-Book.com](/uploads/posts/books/4/4/2/4/the-historians-history-of-the-world-03-greece-to-the-peloponnesian-war-download.jpg)
The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]». Краткое содержание книги:
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.
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.