Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/89

Rh wished to go, and in the heat of the action she fled with sixty ships. The love-sick Antony followed her in a light galley leaving his large vessels to fight as best they could. Even so the issue was long in doubt, the smaller ships of Agrippa made little impression on their monstrous antagonists and not till fire-ships were employed was much effect secured. Towards nightfall, however, the entire fleet was captured or destroyed.

Of this fight the lessons are obvious enough in some ways. There are some details not so obvious: for instance the exact influence that Cleopatra's flight had upon the issue. The accepted story is that she fled about noon; and that her defection, followed by Antony's, led to the subsequent defeat, which else had not been. Every defeat in history has some plausible reason to account for it, and Cleopatra's flight was the most satisfactory explanation to the vanquished.

There is, however, nothing unreasonable in the supposition that her flight may equally well have been the result instead of the cause; and that by noon the larger fleet was in such confusion that the final issue was no longer in doubt to the technical eye. Thus regarded, Actium stands out as a battle in which personnel shows markedly superior to mere matériel. Yet, in so far as Sea Power could be reckoned as a tangible thing it belonged to Antony with his large fleet of almost unassailable warships. His were the big battleships of the period; the ships of Octavianus were but the equivalent of cruisers at the best. Can