Debra Hamel - The Battle of Arginusae: Victory at Sea and Its Tragic Aftermath in the Final Years of the Peloponnesian War

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE

WITNESS TO ANCIENT HISTORY

G REG A LDRETE, Series Editor

A LSO IN THE S ERIES:

Jerry Toner, The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino: Understanding the Roman Games

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE

Victory at Sea and Its Tragic Aftermath in the Final Years of the Peloponnesian War

Debra Hamel

Johns Hopkins University Press

Baltimore

2015 Johns Hopkins University Press

All rights reserved. Published 2015

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hamel, Debra.

The Battle of Arginusae : victory at sea and its tragic aftermath in the final years of the Peloponnesian War / Debra Hamel.

pages cm. (Witness to ancient history)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4214-1680-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4214-1681-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4214-1682-3 (electronic) ISBN 1-4214-1680-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-4214-1681-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 1-4214-1682-4 (electronic) 1. Arginusae, Battle of, Greece, 406 B.C. I. Title.

DF229.83.H36 2015

938'.05dc23

2014030728

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cartography by Bill Nelson.

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Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible.

For Clare,

CONTENTS

APPENDIX A.
Sequence of Events from the Storm to the Deposition of the Generals

APPENDIX B.
Sequence of Events after the Generals Return to Athens

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to the usual suspects, Kyle Behen and Victor Bers, for their support, encouragement, and intellectual input lo these many years. Thanks also to Andrew Ruddle of the Trireme Trust and to Bill Nelson for his cartography. Matthew McAdam of Johns Hopkins University Press and series editor Greg Aldrete provided much useful feedback and made this a far more readable text than it would have been otherwise. Barbara Lamb, finally, saved me from countless errors with her meticulous copyediting. This book is dedicated to Clare Dudman, author and snail aficionado, with my thanks for her generous help, enthusiasm, and most of all, friendship.

TIMELINE

In some cases dates appear below with a slash, for example, 446/5. This is because the Athenian year ran from midsummer to midsummer. All dates listed are B.C. See also the appendixes for discussion of the timing of events in 406.

MAPS

Map 1. Greece

Map 2. Asia Minor and the Aegean

Map 3. Attica and the Saronic Gulf

Map 4. The Battle of Arginusae

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE

Prologue

IF YOU WERE TO FALL off a cruise ship into seventy-two degree water, youd have a reasonable chance of surviving until help arrived, assuming you could stay afloat; water that temperature is unlikely to kill you for at least several hours. All bets are off, of course, if you also happen to be seriously injuredbleeding out after being stabbed in the gut with a sword, for examplewhich would severely diminish your expected survival time. On the particular summer day with which well be concerned in this book, in late July or early August of 406 B.C., there were many thousands of men in just this predicament, bobbing in the cool but not immediately deadly waters of the North Aegean, awaiting rescuealbeit not after a recreational cruise. Most of them were Spartans, or allies of Sparta, but our story has to do with the smaller contingent of Athenian bodies that were in the water. At the moment these men were sailorsoarsmen, most of them, with new blisters on their hands and buttocks that were now stinging in the salt waterbut back in Athens just a few weeks earlier theyd been storekeepers or carpenters or farmers or slaves. Many of them had never served with Athens fleet before, but theyd been called up for service in an emergency. Having done their duty for family and fatherland, they clung now to the wreckage of their wooden ships, their fingers becoming increasingly clumsy the colder they got, and they waited for the rescue boats to pick them up.

The Athenians in the water had just taken part in an important naval battle, and their side had won the day, though they may not have known it. In a fight involving hundreds of ships stretched across miles of sea, its impossible for any one person at water level to know much about the big picture. But even if they knew nothing for sure, they had reason to be hopeful. They werent being picked off by enemy archers, and the Spartans werent sailing among them and clubbing them with oar blades or spearing them like fish as they bobbed helplessly in the water. The injured might not make it, those who had been hit by enemy archers or whod caught a Spartans sword or spear when the ships were close enough for the enemy to board. Or maybe they had been hurt on impact, slammed against the ribs of their vessel when a Spartan warship rammed it, opening a hole in the hull. But the rest of them had a fighting chance, if only they could hold out long enough for help to arrive.