It was as fine a day for sailing as the Rhodian admiral might have hoped for. As he stood on the quarterdeck of the lead quinquereme, squinting his eyes to gaze back upon the long lines of sails behind him, he thanked the gods for the fair weather, and for the clear seas. His thirty-six warships had spent the last weeks ducking from one island to the next, from one hidden cove to another, traveling under moonlight when possible and anchoring at the first light of day that they might not be seen. Throughout the long and arduous journey they had managed to remain unnoticed with only one exception. This came when a sudden gale forced them to seek shelter in the abandoned port of Halieis on the east coast of the Peloponnese. The dilapidated little town had been largely empty, the crumbling walls of its centuries-old acropolis nearly overtaken by the brush, but the Rhodian admiral was sure at least one of the curious vagrants he had seen among the ruins had understood that the passage of so many warships would be valuable news to the Roman Senate, especially since the Senate had attempted to recruit these same warships to their own cause when their ambassadors had approached him weeks ago in Thrace. Now, the exiled Senators would know that he had gone over to the other side, and they would also deduce his ultimate destination.
But what had they expected? Did they not understand that he and his men did not put to sea for any causes other than gold and silver? Caesar had promised to pay ample sums of both, enough for every last seadog to spend the next year drunk on the shore. Thus, they sailed for the port of Brundisium where they were to reinforce Marc Antony’s motley assemblage of transports and then assist in ferrying the rest of Caesar's army across to Greece. With the anticipation of this gold at the forefront of their thoughts, they had made good time, swiftly skirting the Peloponnese, keeping the coast just within view. The lookout had been doubled, each man straining his eyes to study every crag and cove, expecting the entire Optimates fleet to pounce from each one. But the journey had been uneventful. No ambush had appeared to block their path, and now all that remained was the final leg, in which they would leave the surety of the coast and strike out across the sea to Italy.
The admiral had begun to think their journey favored by the gods, that they might reach their final destination without ever encountering the enemy. But then, the dreaded announcement came from the lookout.
“Masts on the horizon, sir! Several of them!”
The masts were not near the coast, as the admiral would have expected, but out on the open sea ahead, a mass of sticks riding along the distant mirror edge. Soon, narrow hulls appeared beneath the sticks with banks of oars rising and falling out of the shimmering expanse, the lead ships flying the purple standard of Rome, confirming his worst fears. The Optimates fleet had found them.
“I count thirty-eight ships, sir!” the lookout called. “Warships, every one! Heading straight at us! They’re cleared for action, sir!”
Could it be? The admiral dared to hope. Only thirty-eight ships meant this was not the entire Roman fleet, but only one or two squadrons. His fears had been predicated on the reports that the Roman fleet numbered in the hundreds. This was something quite different. In fact, the tables had perhaps now turned in his favor.
The two fleets drove at each other like two lethargic swarms of insects, the Rhodians with a new found confidence in the evenly matched numbers, the Romans pressing harder that their quarry might not have time to organize an effective defense.
The Rhodian admiral laughed at the Roman arrogance. For it was well-known that his fleet had no equal. The Rhodians were the masters of the seas. Perhaps the word had not yet reached these western lands, but from the muddy, tree-lined shores of the Euxine Sea down to the sunbaked coast of Egypt, every mariner knew of the mighty Rhodian fleet that had never been defeated in battle. For the right price, they would tip the balance of power in any conflict.
His captains were all proficient and well-drilled in large-scale engagements. Thus, the admiral did not have to give them explicit orders to set them in motion. He ordered the attack pennant run up. Upon seeing this, his captains knew what to do. They maneuvered their agile warships into formation as methodically as the players in an Apollonian dance. As the Roman fleet drew nearer, the Rhodian ships compressed into a circle around the admiral’s flagship and held station there as if they were bound by invisible spokes.
The arrangement gave the appearance of defense, but oh how the Romans would learn its true nature very soon – and before they could do anything about it.
In contrast, the overly eager Romans had assumed no discernible formation whatsoever. They came on at great speed, each racing to be the first to engage. The smaller and swifter triremes made up more than half of the Roman fleet, and these sprinted well out ahead of the lumbering quinqueremes until a good league of open water separated the two groups.
The Rhodian admiral beamed with delight when he saw this, certain now that the Romans' rashness would be their undoing.
As the front line of triremes drew within range, their ballistae began recoiling on their mounts, flinging their missiles at the nearer edge of the Rhodian circle. The range was too great for good accuracy, but some of the long bolts found their marks, slicing through rigging and skewering rowers at their oars. Most fell harmlessly into the sea. As they had been trained to do, the Rhodian ships held their formation, bearing the Roman fusillade, returning only a few ineffectual salvos, the merest appearance of a defense.
The Rhodian admiral nodded with approval at the discipline of his captains, for it was all a ploy meant to give false confidence to their attackers and lure them nearer. He waited patiently for the right moment. Then, when the overly confident Roman triremes had drawn too close to get away, he gave the order. Signal flags shot up the yard arm, and his hitherto passive fleet sprang into action. In perfect unison, his ships broke formation, their glimmering oars coming to life with a sudden alacrity. They fanned out, leaving the tight circle which had given the illusion of fewer numbers and drove into a line stretching longer than that of the Roman triremes. Alarmed at the suddenness of this movement, and suspecting a trap, the Romans backed water and brought their rocking hulls to a stop. But this only played into the hands of the Rhodian line which did not seek to engage the Roman ships in a missile exchange. The Rhodian vessels on the flanks had been carefully chosen for their speed and skill with the ram. Now, with great litheness, they swung around like long arms to embrace the Roman line, and then drove straight at the stalled wings. One by one the jagged edges of the submerged bronze rams ran at full speed into the exposed beams of the Roman triremes, turning the sea to foam and filling the air with the gut-wrenching sounds of lead-plated keels and giant oak girders snapping. Hulls shuddered such that their seams burst. Masts toppled, some over the side fouling other ships, some onto the decks crushing the men beneath. Many of the punctured ships filled with the sea and immediately began to sink, while others hung onto the rams like harpooned whales in the throes of death. With the flanks smashed, some ships in the center of the Roman line sought to come about in place, but most thought better of it, realizing that such a maneuver would expose their beams to the rams in the Rhodian line facing them. Left with few choices, each drove directly for the nearest Rhodian vessel, seeking a boarding action. But this, too, was precisely what the Rhodian admiral desired, since he had placed the ships with the largest crews and the best fighters in the center of his line.