History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

So on this first day the Syracusan army withdrew; but on the following day they sailed out with their ships, seventy-six in number, and at the same time advanced with their land-force against the walls. The Athenians put out to sea to meet them with eighty-six ships, and closing with them commenced the battle.

Eurymedon, who commanded the right wing of the Athenians, wished to surround the ships of the enemy, and had therefore steered his ships out from the line rather too near the shore, when the Syracusans and their allies, after they had defeated the Athenian centre, cut off him also in a recess of the inner bay of the harbour and destroyed both him and the ships that followed him; and after that they set about pursuing the entire Athenian fleet and driving them ashore.