The two lines of ships drove together amidst the incessant exchange of arrows. Grapples flew across the gaps between the hulls and the horrific melees began. Little maneuvering occurred after that, the trapped Roman triremes and the surrounding Rhodian ships transformed into a massive, floating arena. Cries of battle erupted here and there as sword and pike-wielding marines leapt from one grappled ship to another. The Romans were vastly outnumbered, many with Rhodian ships lashed to each side, but they fought courageously as hordes of howling mercenaries poured onto their decks. Shrieking marines, sailors, and rowers fought side-by-side, sharing shields and spilling Rhodian blood with every weapon they could find, slickening the decks with gore. They resisted bravely, but all of their valor could not withstand the overwhelming might of their attackers. Individual struggles quickly transmuted into a series of last stands, and, one by one, the Roman ships began to surrender.
The Rhodian flagship stood off well behind the tangle of vessels such that the admiral could direct the battle. Observing from the stern deck, the admiral was pleased, and somewhat surprised, by the ease with which the triremes had been overcome. He looked past the embroiled ships to the line of Roman quinqueremes which had come to a stop a half league beyond. The Roman cruisers were holding back, undoubtedly fearful of meeting the same fate as their sisters. By all appearance they looked ready to turn and run, and by all logic they should, since they were now outnumbered, the other half of their fleet having been isolated, swallowed, and digested before their eyes.
The admiral considered ordering his grappled ships to break away from their prizes and reform for pursuit, and he was about to give this order, when dozens of fiery projectiles suddenly took flight from the decks of the Roman quinqueremes. The tongues of flame climbed slowly into the sky like the ejecta of an erupting volcano.
The admiral was not immediately concerned by this. It was undoubtedly an act of desperation, a parting shot to cover the Romans’ withdrawal. The quinqueremes were at the extreme range of their heavy engines, and he fully expected the flaming missiles to fall harmlessly into the sea. But as he watched the glowing projectiles draw their black arcs across the sky, his trained eye realized that the trajectories were not haphazard. They had been well-aimed, each one intended for a specific target among his own outlying ships. His deductions were confirmed when the fireballs came down with a thunderous roar, more than a third striking their marks and setting the crews of his tightly clustered ships into a panic. Like hail from Hades, the pitch-laden stone balls smashed through the wooden decks, setting everything in their path ablaze. The battle had come on quickly, and thus some of his ships had not had time to store their collapsed sails in the lockers deep within the damp hold. Long clumps of furled sailcloth lay strewn on the deck, like kindling arranged around a campfire. One after another of these ships burst into flames as the fiery projectiles found the dry linen. Within moments, another enemy barrage had taken to the sky, this one descending on the ships missed by the first volley. These missiles fell with even greater accuracy, two and sometimes three striking a single ship, smashing through oak, armor, and flesh in their destructive passage, starting multiple fires in the lower decks. Many crews, after brief attempts at containment, leaped into the sea to escape the rising infernos.
In his many engagements at sea, the Rhodian admiral had never witnessed artillery employed with such precision, certainly never among the Romans. He found himself staring with open-mouthed admiration even as the fusillade wrought destruction on his own fleet.
The circle of Rhodian ships that had converged around the Roman triremes now resembled a great ring of fire, with most of the outer vessels ablaze. The crews of the untouched ships in the center, still in the final junctures of the boarding melees, were overcome by a wild panic upon seeing the fates of their screaming brethren. They hurriedly withdrew to their own vessels, no longer concerned with the capture of prizes, but only with escape, lest the horrendous fire spread amongst their own tightly packed ships.
The Roman quinqueremes now advanced, slowly picking up speed, never ceasing the barrage, and seemingly impervious to any missiles the Rhodians sent back in their direction. Whenever an unscathed vessel left the fiery circle, it immediately became the target of every Roman ballista until it, too, burned like the others.
As he watched with dejection, the Rhodian admiral realized that his defeat was sealed. He had fatally underestimated his foe, and now his ships would be fortunate enough should they escape, much less continue on their journey to Italy. It was time to withdraw.
“Signal the fleet,” he commanded. “Disengage. Let every ship fend for herself.”
The signal was given, and any of his captains who could read it through the smoke and the flames might do as they will. With a casual wave of his hand, the admiral ordered his own ship turned about and steered for safe waters.
As expected, the Romans did not pay the flagship any mind, for she was well removed from the heart of the battle and too far away to bother with, especially when they could simply wait for the easier prizes to emerge from the circle of fire. The wind soon shifted, masking the whole mass of embroiled ships in a cloud of black smoke, the screams of the burning and dying fading in the distance.
The admiral sighed, pondering the great loss of time and expense, and how quickly fortune had turned against him. It was almost as if the Roman commander had intended all along to sacrifice his triremes that he might use his superior artillery to win the day. But, whether it had been a coolly calculated plan, or simply the unpredictable nature of battle, he would never know.
The quest of the Rhodian fleet had ended in complete disaster. The admiral, however, would escape and live to fight another day. Of course, he would have to hide out in some sparsely inhabited part of the world for a time, until the kin of all those he had led to their deaths had quite forgotten about him. There was always a need for swords for hire on the Euxine Sea. He still had a good ship, and a good crew that was devoted to him. Perhaps, now that the Romans were busy fighting each other, he might try his hand at the lucrative life of piracy.
“Ship there, sir!” the lookout’s voice interrupted his thoughts. The man pointed at the billowing cloud of smoke in the flagship’s wake beyond which the battle still raged.
The admiral turned and looked just in time to see the high prow of a Roman quinquereme materialize from the smoke, her bow jumping from one crest to the next and tossing the seas aside as she came on at full stroke. She was alone, but her intentions were clear. She meant to engage the flagship, and she was closing at an alarming rate.
“Battle speed!” shouted the admiral with a managed coolness.
The whips cracked and the oars increased their pace, but the Roman ship did likewise, and still the distance between the ships diminished with every thrust. It was not long before flocks of arrows and bolts began flying between the vessels. As men fell all around him, transfixed with the deadly missiles, the admiral fully expected his flagship to be roasted like all of her sisters, but, surprisingly, no fire came from the Roman vessel. His own ballistae sent flaming bolts into the Roman’s bulwark, but these were quickly quenched by sailors who briefly exposed themselves to dump buckets of seawater on the flames. The Rhodian archers killed a few of these, but it seemed this had little or no impact, since the dead sailors were instantly replaced by others.