Thucydides Daily Reader

Emboldened by this turn of events, the Athenians raised a unified battle cry and charged at the enemy. The Peloponnesians, thrown into confusion by their own tactical errors and the chaos that had overtaken them, held their ground for only a moment before fleeing toward Panormus, their point of departure. The Athenians pursued relentlessly, capturing the six ships closest to them and recovering their own vessels that had been disabled near the shore and taken under tow at the battle's outset. They killed some enemy sailors and captured others. Aboard the Leucadian ship that sank near the merchant vessel was the Spartan officer Timocrates, who took his own life as his ship went down; his body later washed ashore in the harbor of Naupactus. Upon their return, the Athenians erected a trophy at the location from which they had launched their counterattack, then collected the wreckage and bodies along their coastline, returning the enemy dead under a formal truce. The Peloponnesians likewise erected a trophy to commemorate their initial success in disabling the Athenian ships near shore, and consecrated the captured vessel at Achaean Rhium alongside their monument. Following this engagement, fearing the arrival of Athenian reinforcements, the entire Peloponnesian fleet—except for the Leucadians—withdrew into the Crissaean Gulf toward Corinth. Shortly after their departure, the twenty Athenian ships that should have reinforced Phormio before the battle finally reached Naupactus.

Thus concluded the summer campaign. As winter approached, rather than disbanding the fleet that had retreated to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, the Peloponnesian commanders Cnemus and Brasidas, along with their fellow officers, were persuaded by the Megarians to attempt a bold strike against Piraeus, Athens' main port. Given Athens' overwhelming naval supremacy, the harbor remained undefended and vulnerable. Their strategy was this: each sailor would carry his oar, seat cushion, and oar-strap overland from Corinth to the Athenian side of the isthmus, proceeding swiftly to Megara. There they would launch forty ships already docked at Nisaea and sail immediately for Piraeus. No Athenian patrol fleet guarded the harbor, as no one imagined the enemy would dare such a surprise attack. A direct assault seemed equally unlikely—surely, they reasoned, Athens would receive advance warning of any such plan. Having devised this scheme, they moved to execute it immediately. Arriving under cover of darkness, they launched the ships from Nisaea but sailed not to Piraeus as originally planned—deterred by the perceived risk and, some claimed, by unfavorable winds—but instead toward the Megarian-facing promontory of Salamis. There stood a fort with three guard ships stationed to blockade Megara's maritime traffic. The Peloponnesians attacked this outpost, captured the empty patrol vessels, caught the local population completely off guard, and began devastating the surrounding territory.