Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/227

 ANTONY. 219 about eight furlongs from them. But about noon a breeze sprang up from the sea, and Antony's men, weary of expecting the enemy so long, and trusting to their large tall vessels, as if they had been invincible, began to advance the left squadron. Caesar was overjoyed to see them move, and ordered his o^^m right squadron to retire, that he might entice them out to sea as far as he could, his design being to sail round and round, and so with his light and well-manned galleys to attack these huge ves- sels, which their size and their want of men made slow to move and difficult to manage. "When they engaged, there was no charging or striking of one ship by another, because Antony's, by reason of their great bulk, were incapable of the rapidity required to make the stroke effectual, and, on the other side, CiBsar's durst not charge head to head on Antony's, which were all armed with solid masses and spikes of brass ; nor did they like even to run in on their sides, which were so strongly built with great squared pieces of timber, fastened together with iron bolts, that their vessels' beaks would easily have been shattered upon them. So that the en- gagement resembled a land fight, or, to speak yet more properly, the attack and defence of a fortified place ; for there were always three or four vessels of Csesar's about one of Antony's, pressing them with spears, javelins, poles, and several inventions of fire, which they flung among them, Antony's men using catapults also, to pour down missiles from wooden towers. Agrippa drawing out the squadron under his command to outflank the enemy, PubUcola was obhged to observe his motions, and gradu- ally to break off from the middle squadron, where some confusion and alarm ensued, while Arruntius * engaged them. But the fortune of the day was still undecided,
 * Arruntius commanded in Caesar's centre.