86.
While the Athenians were detained in Crete the Peloponnesians at Cyllene, equipped
for1 a naval engagement, coasted along to Panormus in Achaia, whither the
Peloponnesian army had gone to co-operate with them.
[2]
Phormio also coasted along to the Molycrian Rhium and anchored outside the gulf with
the twenty ships which had fought in the previous engagement.
[3]
This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians; there is another Rhium on the opposite coast
in Peloponnesus; the space between them, which is rather less than a mile, forms the
mouth of the Crisaean Gulf.
[4]
When the Peloponnesians saw that the Athenians had come to anchor, they likewise
anchored with seventyseven ships at the Rhium which is in Achaia, not far from Panormus
where their land forces were stationed.
[5]
For six or seven days the two fleets lay opposite one another, and were busy in
practising and getting ready for the engagement—the one resolved not to sail
into the open sea, fearing a recurrence of their disaster, the other not to sail into
the strait, because the confined space was favourable to their enemies.
[6]
At length Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian generals determined to bring on
an engagement at once, and not wait until the Athenians too received their
reinforcements.
So they assembled their soldiers and, seeing that they were generally dispirited at
their former defeat and reluctant to fight, encouraged them in the
following words:—
1 The Peloponnesians and Phormio take up a position opposite to each other, outside the crisaean Gulf
Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.