History of the Peloponnesian War

For the Syracusans thought that in this way they would have an advantage against the Athenian vessels, which were not in the same manner built to resist them, but were slight ahead, (because they did not charge prow to prow so much as on the side, after taking a circuit;) and, moreover, that the battle being fought in the larger harbour, against a great number of ships in no great space, would be in their favour; for that by charging stem to stem they would stave in their prows, striking as they would with solid and stout beaks against hollow and weak ones.

Nor would the Athenians in their narrow room have opportunity [*](περίπλουν ... διέκπλουν.] These manoeuvres, as well as the ἀνάκρουσις afterwards mentioned, were different methods of giving the ship a momentum required for a second attack. See Arnold's notes on I. 49. 3, and II 89. 12.) of sailing round or cutting through their line, the manoeuvres of their naval science in which they most confided; for they themselves, to the best of their power, would not allow them to cut through their line, and the want of room would prevent their making a circuit.

And what was before thought to be want of skill in masters, namely, to charge stein to stem, was the very method they would chiefly adopt; for they would have the advantage in it; as the Athenians, if forced out of the line, would have no means of backing water in any direction but towards shore, and that, too, at only a short distance from them, and for a short space, namely, just opposite their own encampment. The rest of the harbour they should themselves command;

and the enemy, if forced at any point, by crowding together into a confined space, and all to the same point, would run foul of each other, and be thrown into confusion; (the very thing, indeed, which most hurt the. Athenians in all their sea-fights, since they had not, like the Syracusans, the power of retreating over the whole harbour.) And as for making a circuit into clearer sea-room, since they themselves commanded the entrance from, and the retreat into, the open deep, they would not be able to do it; especially as Plemyrium would be hostile to them, and the mouth of the harbour was not large.

Having adopted such contrivances to suit their own degree of knowledge and power, and at the same time feeling now more assured in consequence of their former battle, the Syracusans prepared to attack them at once by land and by sea.