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Updated: June 29, 2025
Otherwise the only difference from land fighting was the fact that the combatants stood on floating platforms. But in the Peloponnesian war we see not only the birth of naval tactics but a very high development, especially as revealed in these two victories of Phormio. With the development of a naval science rose also a naval profession.
Although the period of Athenian supremacy was short-lived, it is interesting because it produced a great naval genius, Phormio, and because it wrecked itself as Persian sea power had done, in an attempt at foreign conquest. Scarcely had the Persian invasion come to an end when bickering broke out among the various Greek states, much of it directed against Athens.
The victorious crews of Phormio then returned to Naupactus, and set up a trophy at the place where they had been moored when this splendid rally was made, opposite to the temple of Apollo. The Peloponnesians also raised a trophy, to commemorate their first success, and then, fearing the arrival of the fresh ships from Athens, they sailed off to Lechaeum, the northern harbour of Corinth.
So unskilled were the Greeks in the attack of fortified cities, that the besiegers made no progress, and were obliged to resort to blockade. A wall of circumvallation was built around the city, which was now left to the operations of famine. The Spartans and their allies suffered a repulse at Stratus, and their fleet was defeated by Phormio, the Athenian admiral.
The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving at Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them the ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in the late actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man. And so ended this winter, and the third year of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
He’s strong and desperate. Bias and I will wait and guard him. If you stir, traitor,—” she was holding a heavy meat-knife at the fugitive’s throat,—“I’ll slit your weasand like a chicken.” But for once in his life Phormio defied his tyrant effectively. With one hand he tore the weapon from her clutch, the other closed her screaming mouth. “Are you mad yourself? Will you rouse the neighbourhood?
Two years had not removed the wrinkles from her cheek, the sharpness from her nose, the rasping from her tongue. At sight of her Democrates half rose from his seat and held out his hand affably, the demagogue’s instinct uppermost. “Ah! my good dame, whom do I recognize? Are you not the wife of our excellent fishmonger, Phormio? A truly sterling man, and how, pray, is your good husband?”
Corinth called on Sparta for help, and in consequence northern and southern Greece were locked in a mortal struggle. The Athenians had a naval base at Naupaktis on the Gulf of Corinth, and in 429, two years after war broke out, the Athenian Phormio found himself supplied with only twenty triremes with which to maintain control of that important waterway.
Since Salamis they had progressed far in naval science and efficiency and were filled with the confidence that comes from knowledge and experience. All night Phormio watched his enemy and at dawn surprised him in mid-crossing.
The issues you will fight for are great to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring nearer to the Athenians their fears for the sea. And I may once more remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and beaten men do not face a danger twice with the same determination." Such was the exhortation of Phormio.
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