The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE 339
in Mytilene. The relief fleet would require 22,000 more men. The best
of them would be those rejected by Conon as below his standard for
the fleet in the Aegean, in normal times the scrapings from the bottom
of the barrel, but they would have filled no more than thirty ships or
so. For the rest, the Athenians had to enroll men from every class in
society-the unpropertied who usually served as rowers, the farmers
who normally fought in the phalanx as hoplites, and even the wealthy
and aristocratic cavalrymen. Final evidence of the desperation of the
situation is that the Athenians even enrolled slaves, offering them
freedom as a reward and Athenian citizenship on the same terms that
they had given the Plataeans: "They embarked all those who were of
military age, both slave annd free. " 47 Obviously, crews made up of
such men lacked experience, discipline, and cohesion. Many of them,
moreover, will have been commanded by inexperienced and unskilled
captains and served by unskilled steersmen, who must have been in
short supply. For the first time in the war, the Athenians entered a
naval battle tactically inferior. 48 This rag-tag Athenian fleet, thrown
together in the space of a month, must face a Spartan force that was
well paid and well drilled, confident after its recent victories, and led
by a bold young commander who had just defeated the Athenians'
best admiral, Conon.
Around the middle of July the new Athenian fleet set out for its
base on Samos under the command of no fewer than eight generals.""'
They were joined there by 10 Samian warships and perhaps 35 more
collected from various allies, bringing their total to 15 5 triremes! 0 The
mobilization had left the city walls to be defended by a small force of
those men left behind, those who were under the age of twenty and
over fifty, as well as any others unfit or excused from service on the
ships. 51 This would have been a fine opportunity for Agis to launch
an assault on Athens with his army from Decelea, but unaccountably,
he did not move. Thucydides might have had this moment, among
47
Xen. 1.6.24. For the enfranchisement of slaves, see Aristoph. Frogs 693--694 with
scholion. The scholiast cites Hellanicus, FGrH Ill, p]a, Fr. 25.
48 Xenophon (L6.JI) tells us that the Athenians at Arginusae chose their alignment
"because they were inferior in seamanship" (xetpov 'YaP E1r~eov), and the Spartans
chose theirs "because they had superior seamanship" (SW TO j3EATtov 1rh.etv).
49
Busolt, GG Ill:2, 159I-I592.
50
Xen. I.6.25. Xenophon gives the number of ships coming from allies other than
Samos as "more than 30" and the total as "more than 150." I have taken these numbers
as 35 and 155, which should not be far wrong.
51
Busolt, GG lll:2, 1592-1593i HCT 1.3o8.