History of the Peloponnesian War

When night came on, Cnemus retired as quickly as he could with his army to the river Anapus, which is eighty stades distant from Stratus, and the next day recovered his dead by truce; and the $Oeniadae having joined him, on the ground of a friendly connexion, he fell back upon that city before the reinforcements of the enemy had arrived. Thence they departed to their respective homes; while the Stratians erected a trophy for the result of their engagement with the barbarians.

Now the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates coming from the Crisaean Bay, which ought to have joined Cnemus, in order to prevent the Acarnanians on the coast from succouring their countrymen in the interior, did not do so; but they were compelled, about the same time as the battle was fought at Stratus, to come to an engagement with Phormio and the twenty Athenian vessels that kept guard at Naupactus.

For Phormio kept watching them as they coasted along out of the gulf, wishing to attack them in the open sea.

But the Corinthians and the allies were not sailing to Acarnania with any intention to fight by sea, but were equipped more for land service. When, however, they saw them sailing along opposite to them, as they themselves proceeded along their own coast; and on attempting to cross over from Patrae in Achaia to the mainland opposite, on their way to Acarnania, observed the Athenians sailing against them from Chalcis and the river Evenus; (for they had not escaped their observation when they had endeavoured to bring to secretly during the night;) under these circumstances they were compelled to engage in the mid passage.

They had separate commanders for the contingents of the different states that joined the armament, but those of the Corinthians were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharcidas.

And now the Peloponnesians ranged their ships in a circle, as large as they could without leaving any opening, with their prows turned outward and their sterns inward; and placed inside all the small craft that accompanied them, and their five best sailers, to advance out quickly and strengthen any point on which the enemy might make his attack.

On the other hand, the Athenians, ranged in a single line, kept sailing round them, and reducing them into a smaller compass; continually brushing past them, and making demonstrations of an immediate onset; though they had previously been commanded by Phormio not to attack them till he himself gave the signal.

For he hoped that their order would not be maintained like that of a land-force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of each other, and that the other craft would cause confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf, in expectation of which he was sailing round them, and which usually rose towards morning, that they would not remain steady an instant. He thought too that it rested with him to make the attack, whenever he pleased, as his ships were better sailers [than those opposed to him];