Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/200

 178 HISTORY OF GREECE as unwounded, of these crews, were left to be gradually drowned as each disabled ship went down. If any of them escaped, it was by unusual goodness of swimming, by finding some fortunate plank or spar, at any rate by the disgrace of throwing away their arms, and by some method such as no wounded man would be competent to employ. Th3 first letter from the generals which communicated the vic- tory, made known at the same time the loss sustained in obtaining it. It announced, doubtless, the fact which we read in Xenophon, that twenty-five Athenian triremes had been lost, with nearly all their crews ; specifying, we may be sure, the name of each tri- reme which had so perished ; for each trireme in the Athenian navy, like modern ships, had its own name. 1 It mentioned, at the same time, that no step whatever had been taken by the victorious survivors to save their wounded and drowning countrymen on board the sinking ships. A storm had arisen, such was the reasot. assigned, so violent as to render all such intervention totally im- practicable. 2 It is so much the custom, in dealing with Grecian history, to presume the Athenian people to be a set of children or madmen, whose feelings it is not worth while to try and account for, that I have been obliged to state these circumstances somewhat at length, in order to show that the mixed sentiment excited at Athens by the news of the battle of Arginusas was perfectly nat- ural and justifiable. Along with joy for the victory, there was blended horror and remorse at the fact that so many of the brave uen who had helped to gain it had been left to perish unheeded. The friends and relatives of the crews of these lost triremes were 1 Boeckh, in bis instructive volume, Urkunden iiber das Attische Sce- Wesen (vii, p. 84, seq.), gives, from inscriptions, a long list of the names of Athenian triremes, between B.C. 356 and 322. All the names are feminine : some curious. We have a long list also of the Athenian ship-builders ; since the name of the builder is commonly stated in the inscription along with that of the ship: Ev^apt f, 'Ahegiftdxov Ipyov ; Eetpjyv, 'Aptoro- Kpurovf Ipyov ; 'E2,ev#epta, 'Apxeveu Ipyov ; 'Efffdetftf, AiKTiorpa- TOV epycy ; krjfioKparia, Xatpeorparou Ipyov, etc. aTparrjyol) iirtaro^v tKEdeiicvve (Theramenes) paprvpiov nai i-rrffi^av ol orparrryol If rrjv (lov'htjv teal If rbv Arjpov, dAAo ovdev airiufievoi rj rbi grtouws,
 * Xenoph. Hellen. i, 7, 4. 'On [LEV yap ovdevbc usJ.ov /caiS^jrro.ro (oi