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

344 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
allow them to employ the tactics perfected by the Athenians in the
many decades of their naval supremacy: the periplous, employing superior
speed to row around the enemy formation and strike from its
side or rear, and the diekplous, in which a ship sailed into the gap
between two enemy ships and did the same. If the Spartans knew that
they were outnumbered, they were unconcerned, for they counted on
their tactical superiority to carry the day."' "All the Spartan ships were
aligned in a single line abreast so as to be in position for the diekplous
and the periplour, for they were the better seamen."" Recent events
had given the Spartans the skill to try such maneuvers while the Athenians
had lost the ability to use them but must fear them instead.
The Athenians, therefore, received the enemy in a formation that
was arranged in an unusual way, was commanded in an unprecedented
manner, and, as far as we know, was unique in Greek naval history. 62
Each wing consisted of sixty ships, arranged in a double line and
divided into units of fifteen triremes, each under its own general (see
Map 12). Aristocrates and Diomedon commanded the forward units
on the left, with Pericles and Erasinides behind them. Protomachus
and Thrasyllus led the forward units on the right wing, with Lysias
and Aristogenes behind them." In the center, next to Diomedon's
unit, were ten Samian ships under their own commander, Hippeus,
water amidships is calculated by applying the Pythagorean theorem: side a is the height
of the trireme from outrigger to water line (8.5 feet) and the hypotenuse, side c, is the
length of the oar berween oarlock on the outrigger and tip. (The oar used amidships
was 14 feet, 4 inches. If we allow about 3 feet for the distance inboafd from outrigger
to rower's hands, we get a distance of about 11 feet.) The result is about 9 feet from
the gunwale to the tip of the oar in the water. (?2.25 feet X X = 121 feet; X = 6.98
feet, rounded to 7 feet plus 2 feet for ~istance from outrigger to gunwale = 9 feet.)
The ship trying the diekplous, therefore, requires a minimum of 34 feet (16 + 9 + 9).
To that must be added 9 feet for the extended oars of each defending ship, giving a
total of 52 feet, or I].J yards. In fact, the defending ships will prefer a bit of leeway,
which they can safely allow, yielding a space between triremes abreast of roughly 18
to 20 yards. Since the length of a trireme was between 1 I 5 and 120 feet, a half-turn
would require a space of about 6o feet, or 20 yards. Again, some leeway would be
desirable; perhaps the interval may have been as great as 25 yards, but 20 yards seems
rouR:hly correct for the normal interval between Greek triremes aligned abreast.
6
Apparently, they did not know it before they set out, for Hermon, the kyberoetes
on Callicratidas' flagship, warned his admiral to turn back because they were outnumbered
only when they came in sight of the Athenian fleet (Xen. I .6. p).
61
Xen. 1.6. JI.
62
See below, n. 67.
61 Xen. I.6.29-30. Diodorus (IJ-98.2-J) has only a limited and confused idea of the
Athenian alignment, saying nothing about a single or double line or about separate
units and certainly getting the assignments of the commanders wrong.