Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/152

 36 towards them twenty vessels which the Athenians had sent to reinforce the former ten,

fearing what had actually happened, that the Corcyraeans would be defeated, and that the original squadron would be insufficient to protect them.

The Corinthians, who had the first view of these vessels,

suspecting that they were Athenian and that there were more of them than they saw, were beginning to retreat. The Corcyraeans, owing to their position, could not see them, and they wondered why the Corinthians rowed astern. At length some of them who spied the advancing fleet exclaimed, 'Yonder are ships coming up;' and then the Corcyraeans, as it was getting dark, likewise retired, and the Corinthians turned about and sailed away. Thus the two fleets separated after a battle which lasted until nightfall. The twenty ships which came from Athens under the command of Glaucon the son of Leagrus, and Andocides the son of Leogoras, made their way through the wrecks and corpses and sailed into the Corcyraean station at Leucimnè almost as soon as they were sighted. At first in the darkness the Corcyraeans feared that they were enemies, but they soon recognised them and the Athenian vessels came to anchor.

On the next day the thirty Athenian and all the

Corcyraean ships which were fit for service, wanting to ascertain whether the Corinthians would fight, sailed to the harbour at Sybota where their fleet lay. The Corinthians, putting out into deep water, drew up their ships in line and so remained, but they did not intend to begin the battle. For they saw that fresh ships, which had received no damage in the action, had arrived from Athens, and their own position was one of great difficulty. They had to guard the prisoners in their vessels, and there were no means of refitting in such a desert place. They were