Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/194

 172 HISTORY OF GREECE. ing the land immediately in its rear, was supposed to be better protected against an enemy " sailing through the line out to the rear, and saih'ng round about," than the other divisions, which were in the open waters ; for which reason it was left weak, with the ships in single line. But the fact which strikes us the most is, that, if we turn back to the beginning of the war, we shall find that this diekplus and periplus were the special manoeuvres of the Athenian navy, and continued to be so even down to the siege of Syracuse ; the Lacedaemonians being at first absolutely unable to perform them at all, and continuing for a long time to perform them far less skilfully than the Athenians. Now, the comparative Wue of both parties is reversed : the superiority ol nautical skill has passed to the Peloponnesians and their allies : the precautions whereby that superiority is neutralized or evaded, are forced as a necessity on the Athenians. How astonished would the Athenian admiral Phormion have been, if he could have witnessed the fleets and the order of battle at Arginusse ! Kallikratidas himself, with the ten Lacedaemonian ships, was on the right of his fleet : on the left were the Boeotians and Eubceans, under the Bosotian admiral Thrasondas. The battle was long and obstinately contested, first by the two fleets in their original order ; afterwards, when all order was broken, by scat- tered ships mingled together and contending in individual com- bat. At length the brave Kallikratidas perished. His ship was in the act of driving against the ship of an enemy, and he himself probably, like Brasidas ] at Pylos, had planted himself on the forecastle, to be the first in boarding the enemy, or in pre- venting the enemy from boarding him, when the shock arising from impact threw him off his footing, so that he fell overboard and was drowned. 2 In spite of the discouragement springing from his death, the ten Lacedaemonian triremes displayed a courage worthy of his, and nine of them were destroyed or disa- 1 SeeThucyd.iv,!!. 2 Xenoph. Hellcn. i, 6, 33. i T; e I 6e Ka^/UxpariJuf re typa ovaiif T?H veuf uffoTrecrwv Ef TTJV daXaacav i/^avtcr&i], etc. The details given by Diodorus about this battle and the exploits of Kal likratidas are at once prolix and unworthy of confidence. See an excel- lent note of Dr. Arnold on Thucyd. iv, 12, respecting the description given by Diodorus of the conduct of Bras'das at Pylos.