says: "The 'diecplus' was a breaking through the enemy's line in
order by a rapid turning of the vessel to strike the enemy's ship
on the side or stern, where it was most defenceless, and so to
sink it." So, it seems, "the superiority of nautical skill has
passed," as Grote (viii. p. 234) says, "to the Peloponnesians and
their allies." Well may the historian add, "How astonished would
the Athenian Admiral Phormion have been, if he could have
witnessed the fleets and the order of battle at Arginusae!" See
Thuc. iv. 11.

The Lacedaemonians, on the contrary, trusting to their superior
seamanship, were formed opposite with their ships all in single line,
with the special object of manouvring so as either to break the
enemy's line or to wheel round them. Callicratidas commanded the right
wing in person. Before the battle the officer who acted as his pilot,
the Megarian Hermon, suggested that it might be well to withdraw the
fleet as the Athenian ships were far more numerous. But Callicratidas
replied that Sparta would be no worse off even if he personally should
perish, but to flee would be disgraceful.[12] And now the fleets
approached, and for a long space the battle endured. At first the
vessels were engaged in crowded masses, and later on in scattered
groups. At length Callicratidas, as his vessel dashed her beak into
her antagonist, was hurled off into the sea and disappeared. At the
same instant Protomachus, with his division on the right, had defeated
the enemy's left, and then the flight of the Peloponnesians began
towards Chios, though a very considerable body of them made for
Phocaea, whilst the Athenians sailed back again to Arginusae. The
losses on the side of the Athenians were twenty-five ships, crews and
all, with the exception of the few who contrived to reach dry land. On
the Peloponnesian side, nine out of the ten Lacedaemonian ships, and