19.2 The Battle of Arginusae
When the Spartan fleet at Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos, heard of the approaching Athenian fleet, Callicratidas sailed out with 120 ships, leaving 50 to maintain the blockade against Conon’s fleet, to meet his enemy in the straits between the Asian mainland and the island of Lesbos. He found the Athenian fleet having dinner in the Arginusae Islands, just off the mainland opposite the southeastern tip of Lesbos. He attempted to make a surprise attack by night, but a storm prevented his plan.
In the morning the Athenian fleet arranged itself in an unusual order. In their center they stationed a single row of ships, with the Arginusae Islands behind them. On either flank, they placed one row of ships with a gap between each ship, but behind that row they placed a second row in the gaps. The customary arrangement was to make a single line of ships on the flanks as well as the center. But the Athenians, because of their green sailors, wanted to forestall the possibility of a diekplous, the maneuver by which one ship sailed between two opposing ships and turned to attack their sterns, where they had no armaments. The Athenians also extended their flanks beyond the Spartan flanks, taking away the other decisive maneuver, the periplous, by which a ship encircled the enemy by sailing around him. Now the Athenians were in position to outflank the Spartans.
In the battle 270 ships were engaged, the largest sea battle of Greeks against Greeks ever fought. The commanders of each side sounded the attack on trumpets, and the men shouted out as they attacked. The battle developed into two separate engagements, one on the right flank, one on the left, presumably with the Athenian center held in reserve. Callicratidas bravely attacked the ships facing him, but when he rammed the ship of the Athenian general Pericles, the son of the famous statesman, Pericles grappled the Spartan ship and boarded it. Callicratidas was surrounded and slain fighting, and the tide of battle turned. Soon the Spartan fleet was in full retreat. The Athenians lost 25 ships, the Spartans 77, over half their force.
Toward the end of the battle a gale blew up that made further operations difficult. Forced to take refuge on the islands of Arginusae, the Athenians planned to pick up survivors and bodies of the fallen with one detachment of ships while the main fleet sailed to Mytilene to lift the siege. But the storm only increased in intensity, so the fleet had to wait it out. The long, low triremes they sailed were built for speed in a calm sea, not for weathering storms.
When the Spartan commander at Mytilene heard the news of the Spartan defeat, he sent his ships away to Chios, while he marched his army back to the city of Methymna. Conon’s 40 ships joined with the 125 remaining Athenian ships to give them a decisive naval superiority for the time being. Meanwhile, the wreckage of the battle was scattered far and wide by the storm, so that rescue crews found few survivors and bodies. The Athenian fleet raided Chios and returned to the main base at Samos. They had won a decisive victory. Had they lost the battle, the Athenians would have lost their empire and the ongoing war with Sparta. Now they ruled the waves once more, and their enemies were on the defensive.