right) was Thrasylus with another division of fifteen.
Protomachus was supported by Lysias with an equal number of ships, and
Thrasylus by Aristogenes. The object of this formation was to prevent
the enemy from manouvring so as to break their line by striking them
amidships, (11) since they were inferior in sailing power.

(11) Lit. "by the diekplous." Cf. Thuc. i. 49, and Arnold's note, who
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 more than sixty belonging to the
rest of the allied squadron, were lost.

(12) For the common reading, {oikeitai}, which is ungrammatical,