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

342 TilE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
Diodorus tells wonderful tales of dire and remarkably accurate portents
that led the seers on both sides vainly to advise against fighting on the
appointed day. On the Spartan side, waves are said to have covered
the head of the sacrificial victim, portending the death of the Spartan
admiral. Thrasyllus (wrongly called Thrasybulus, as usual), whom
Diodorus designates as the chief commander of the Athenian forces
on the fatal day, is said to have had a dream in which he and his seven
fellow generals were performing Euripides' Phoenissae while their opponents
were doing the same poet's Suppliants, both plays about the
legend of the seven against Thebes. Thrasyllus and his comrades won
a "Cadmeian victory" in which they were all killed. It did not take a
very imaginative seer to see this as a portent of Athenian victory at
the expense of the lives of its generals. Callicratidas, we are told,
believed the Spartan prophecy but was not deterred. He was willing
to die to achieve a Spartan victory. He was prudent enough, however,
to name the experienced commander Clearchus to take his place in
case he died in battle. 58 Through all of the romantic invention here,
we probably can discern a fact. It did not take portents or seers to
suggest the desirability of establishing a clear chain of command in a
naval battle but only a memory of what had happened at Notium.
The death of Antiochus early in the fighting and the disastrous confusion
it caused were certainly known to both sides, and Callicratidas
acted with prudence to avoid such an outcome.
The Spartan fleet entered the battle in standard array, moving forward
line abreast, the 1 20 ships side by side, spanning a distance of
about 2,400 yards, or a mile and a third. 59 It was an order that would
58
Diod. IJ-97·4-98.1.
59 [ know of no ancient testimony on or modern discussion of the normal space between
triremes when rowing abreast. My estimate is based on two calculations: the greatest
space between ships compatible with preventing an enemy from making the maneuver
called the diekplous (breaking through the line) and the space needed to permit a quick
half-turn to either side, allowing a change to the line ahead; or columnar formation.
(For a good discussion of these tactics, see J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek
Dared Ships, goo-pz B. C. [Cambridge, 1968], 3 14.) The first distance may be calculated
by adding the maximum breadth of the top deck of the trireme attempting the diekpkJus
from outrigger to outrigger ( 16 feet), doubling the distance between the outrigger on
one side and the place where the oars amidships strike the water, plus 2 feet on each
side for the distance between the outrigger and the top of the gunwale amidships, and
the same distance to account for the distance between gunwale and the place where
the oar strikes the water on the inboard side of each of the defending ships. (The
dimensions of triremes and oars are given in Morrison and Williams, Greek Oared Ships,
z85, 289; and L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World [Princeton, N.J.,
1971], 77.) The distance between the outrigger and the place where the oar strikes the