Page 119 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

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to be a priority. Nicias was based on the infantry for winning the battle. He urged them
not to leave an enemy ship before throwing its crew and army into the sea. Respectively,
the sailors that usually were ordered to withdraw their ship to the shore in the case that
was damaged; now they were ordered to abandon that practice, as the enemy occupied the
greatest part of the land. The Syracusians were aware of the iron hooks that the Athenians
were using to snatch the enemy ships and to hold them, giving the time to the infantry
men on board to battle as they would do on land. Thus they coated their ships prows with
leather for the hooks to slide and not to be snatched. The Syracusians lined up a part of the
seventy-five ships they possessed in the unblocked part of the harbour.
The rest were lined in a circle around the coast so as to attack the Athenian fleet in the
front and from the sides. At the same time, were the ships to come close to the shore, the
infantry would move to join in. The battle was the fiercest of all that had been given in the
course of the expedition. The Athenian fleet was soon found to be on disadvantage. Being
trapped inside the harbour, they could not carry out the manoeuvres for which they had
been so skilful. With the exception of the Salamis strait, never before had so many ships
battled in so limited space. Soon the battle turned into several separate clashes. Very few
ramming were carried out. Not only there was no space for the ships to retreat back as to
attack with speed but also being intermingled among the enemy ships, they could not carry
out the offensive manoeuvres.
The battle was conducted with bows and spears between the ships crews that were
fighting one another from the decks. From the coast, the two armies were watching the
battle’s tight development with tension and anguish. The Athenians were defeated and
several of their ships resorted to the fortified part of the coast where the infantry had
been lined up during the battle to rescue those crews that were forced onto the shore by
the enemy. In the course of their retreat from the land, the Athenians were exposed to the
outstanding cavalry and “pellis” infantry of the Syracusians without being able to respond
even though they too possessed similar units.
Combat Power and the Rise of the Navy: The Epitaph (Funeral Oration) that was de-
livered by Pericles to praise those killed during the first year of the Peloponnesian war, il-
lustrates the Athenians pride for their successes. Primarily though, the Epitaph constitutes
the declaration of the war’s ideological background and operational strategy. Pericles, as a
politician and a general, envisaged the likely plans of his enemy: “Neither the building of
enemy walls in our country nor their navy are worthy to cause fear on us… From our naval
experience we know more for the land war than they know for the naval matters from their
experience in the land war. How farmers can possibly achieve something worthwhile,
since we will always have them besieged by several ships… More than anything else, the
navy relies on experience and it cannot be seen as a matter of a lesser priority when the
chance arises…Because the sea dominance offers a great advantage”. 15
The Athenians were defeated in the war since they were trapped in the conception that
the mere dominance at the sea would lead them to prevail, while the Spartans early real-
ized the principle of joint warfare.

15 Ibid., I, 142-143