prisoners were made on either side; the Corinthians and Peloponnesians
who were fighting near the shore escaping with ease, and none of the
Athenian vessels having been sunk. The Athenians now sailed back to
Naupactus, and the Corinthians immediately set up a trophy as victors,
because they had disabled a greater number of the enemy's ships.
Moreover they held that they had not been worsted, for the very same
reason that their opponent held that he had not been victorious; the
Corinthians considering that they were conquerors, if not decidedly
conquered, and the Athenians thinking themselves vanquished, because
not decidedly victorious. However, when the Peloponnesians sailed
off and their land forces had dispersed, the Athenians also set up a
trophy as victors in Achaia, about two miles and a quarter from
Erineus, the Corinthian station.
This was the termination of the action at Naupactus. To return to
Demosthenes and Eurymedon: the Thurians having now got ready to join
in the expedition with seven hundred heavy infantry and three
hundred darters, the two generals ordered the ships to sail along
the coast to the Crotonian territory, and meanwhile held a review of
all the land forces upon the river Sybaris, and then led them
through the Thurian country. Arrived at the river Hylias, they here
received a message from the Crotonians, saying that they would not
allow the army to pass through their country; upon which the Athenians
descended towards the shore, and bivouacked near the sea and the mouth
of the Hylias, where the fleet also met them, and the next day
embarked and sailed along the coast touching at all the cities
except Locri, until they came to Petra in the Rhegian territory.
Meanwhile the Syracusans hearing of their approach resolved to
make a second attempt with their fleet and their other forces on
shore, which they had been collecting for this very purpose in order
to do something before their arrival. In addition to other
improvements suggested by the former sea-fight which they now
adopted in the equipment of their navy, they cut down their prows to a
smaller compass to make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter,
and from these let stays into the vessels' sides for a length of six
cubits within and without, in the same way as the Corinthians had
altered their prows before engaging the squadron at Naupactus. The
Syracusans thought that they would thus have an advantage over the
Athenian vessels, which were not constructed with equal strength,
but were slight in the bows, from their being more used to sail
round and charge the enemy's side than to meet him prow to prow, and
that the battle being in the great harbour, with a great many ships in
not much room, was also a fact in their favour. Charging prow to prow,
they would stave in the enemy's bows, by striking with solid and stout
beaks against hollow and weak ones; and secondly, the Athenians for
want of room would be unable to use their favourite manoeuvre of
breaking the line or of sailing round, as the Syracusans would do
their best not to let them do the one, and want of room would
prevent their doing the other. This charging prow to prow, which had
hitherto been thought want of skill in a helmsman, would be the
Syracusans' chief manoeuvre, as being that which they should find most
useful, since the Athenians, if repulsed, would not be able to back
water in any direction except towards the shore, and that only for a
little way, and in the little space in front of their own camp. The
rest of the harbour would be commanded by the Syracusans; and the
Athenians, if hard pressed, by crowding together in a small space
and all to the same point, would run foul of one another and fall into
disorder, which was, in fact, the thing that did the Athenians most
harm in all the sea-fights, they not having, like the Syracusans,
the whole harbour to retreat over. As to their sailing round into
the open sea, this would be impossible, with the Syracusans in
possession of the way out and in, especially as Plemmyrium would be
hostile to them, and the mouth of the harbour was not large.
With these contrivances to suit their skill and ability, and now
more confident after the previous sea-fight, the Syracusans attacked