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

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE 341
Athenian strategy, and saying little about the course of the fighting
once the battle began. Diodorus' narrative, although taking better account
of the geography and containing a few useful details, is generally
implausible and full of rhetorical flourishes that contribute nothing to
our understanding of the fighting. On this occasion, he seems to be
following Ephorus at his rhetorical worst rather than the sober and
judicious anonymous historian whose work has come to us on a papyrus
from Oxyrhynchus. 56 Modern accounts have attempted to deal with
the problems, to fill in the gaps, and to make sense of the battle, with
greater or lesser degrees of success." None of them, however, has fully
accounted for the precision of some of the details provided by Xenophon,
for the role played by the islands themselves in the Athenian
strategy, for the clues available about the course of the battle, and for
the direction it took. The following description tries to give a fuller
account.
As the sun rose on the day of battle, Callicratidas' fleet began to
row toward the east across the two miles of water that separated Cape
Malea from the Athenian ships at the Arginusae Islands (see Map 1 1).
56
The main problem of Xenophon's account is that it offers no explanation of why
the Athenians were not outflanked and defeated by the Spartans, who were arrayed
in a single line of 120 ships, while the Athenians were arranged in a formation in which
their wings were formed in double lines, offering a front line of only 30 ships on each
wing joined by a center in single line of about 30, giving a front of only 90 ships. Since
the Spartans are described as superior tactically, such an overlap ought to have given
them the victory, but Xenophon does not notice the problem. Diodorus recognizes the
Athenians' difficulty and says that they used the islands as a means of extending their
line. His explanation of the Spartans' response to the Athenian formation, however,
is implausible, as we shall see, nor does he make clear the Athenian strategy. Once
the fighting starts, his story is of even less value, containing statements that range from
some contradicting his earlier ones, to others that are highly implausible, to still others
that seem impossible. He calls most of the participants in the battle "experienced" and
"the best" fighters (IJ-99-2), even though he has spoken of the emergency muster in
which the Athenians were forced to cnroll anyone able to serve (IJ-97-I). He has
Thrasyllus name the trierarch Theramcnes to a command, although there were already
eight Athenian generals at hand, and it is unclear where he would have found the
authority to do this. He has Callicratidas sink the ship of the Athenian general Lysias,
although the former led the right wing of his fleet and the latter served at the opposite
end of the battle, on the right wing of his fleet. His account of the preliminaries to the
battle is full of portents, dreams, and rhetoric. His narrative of Callicratidas' deeds in
battle reads more like an epic ari.fteia than a historical description.
57 The first thorough discussion was Grote's (VIII, I 70-1 73). L. F. Herbst (Die Schlacht
bei den Arginusen [Hamburg, I 855]) made some useful contributions, although in several
respects the work is inferior to Grote's. Probably the best discussion is Busolt's (GG
Ill:2, I593-1596), although it contains a fundamental error about the Athenian order
of battle.