The oarsmen below decks were the hardest of the hard core of Acharnian patriots. Some, such as Dicaearchus, son of Erasinus, were rich men before the Lacedaemonians sacked their estates. Others, like Cleinias, son of Menanthus, and Timon, son of nobody-knows, were dirt poor laborers from the charcoal works to whom the rowers’ salary of one drachma a day was a considerable windfall. All were landlubbers from a place as distant from the sea as any in Attica. Yet together they constituted one of the best crews in the fleet, working together so well that they once almost beat the state flagship, Salaminia, from Piraeus to Aegina. This feat was all the more remarkable because the Terror’s gang of riffraff matched the Salaminia’s crew of professionals stroke for stroke.
On their first trip around the Peloponnese they sailed in the company of nineteen other ships under the admiral Phormio. This voyage was as gratifying as any campaign the Acharnians had ever seen on land or sea-with the Peloponnesian ships afraid to engage them, the entire enemy coast was open to attack. The Athenians paused where they pleased to burn towns just as the Lacedaemonians did in Attica; when they landed their ships for the night they were free to liberate all the provisions they needed from nearby farms, including cattle and pigs. To the relief of the oarsmen-and the delight of Philemon-the men of the Terror ate better and got better air and water on campaign than they ever had in overcrowded, plague-ridden, bug-infested Athens.
The only cloud on their horizon was Xeuthes’ mania for equalizing the oar power of the ship. It was not unusual for the port or starboard side to be stronger because, by chance, one or the other team of rowers had more strength or superior technique. Yet producing balanced teams was not as easy as simply commanding the oarsmen to swap benches. There was a clear heirarchy in the positions of the rowers, with those seated atop the outriggers, the so-called “beam men,” getting the most fresh air and the best view of the action outside. Below them were those in seats mounted on the middeck (the “deck men”), and lowest of all those laboring belowdecks, or the “hold men.” The deck men could see little of the outside world and depended on the beam men for guidance, but their position was still infinitely preferable to being in the lowest rank. With their benches mounted barely above water level, the hold men worked in a sunken stall of wood and flesh. If the ship was flooded they were least likely of all to escape with their lives. On a long voyage the atmosphere could be stifling, as they pitched blindly in their warrens, the stench of bilgewater rising from below while an unrelenting flow of sweat, urine, or worse flowed down from the crewmen above. To ask the beam man Patronices to exchange seats with a hold man like Timon was, therefore, as good as to invite Patronices to riot. In the end, Xeuthes had to match the power on each beam by exchanging men of equal rank only-a puzzle that took days to sort out.
The wisdom of the captain’s preparations paid off during their very first battle. In the third summer of the war, Phormio based his little fleet at Naupactus, on the Crisaean Gulf athwart the shipping lanes of Sparta’s ally, Corinth. The Peloponnesians had sent a fleet of forty-seven ships under their admiral Machaon to support an attack on Athens’ allies in Acarnania. Though he had fewer than half Machaon’s force, Phormio shadowed the Corinthians. Supposing that they would try to slip by him in the predawn darkness, he then positioned his fleet to catch them on open water.
The enemy, having more troop carriers than triremes, adopted a defensive circle with their rams facing out. If Machaon’s men had been Athenians, there would have been little chance of breaking into their formation. But the Corinthian crews were not nearly so disciplined. Phormio’s ships encouraged their disorder by rowing around them in a circle, sometimes passing close enough to brush against their rams. As the sun rose and the wind freshened, the enemy ring became a lozenge, then a confused tangle of prows and oars. Judging that moment to be most opportune, Phormio released his fleet to attack.
Sphaerus had by this time done as little steering as necessary. At the captain’s signal, the old man worked the rudders to make a sharp portside turn, then shot into a gap between two Corinthians with their oar-blades ensnared. In that single maneuver, the Terror sheared off the oars of both ships, then went on to ram Machaon’s ship beyond them. Witnesses in the other Athenian ships cheered; the men of the Terror endured a few breathless moments as Xeuthes ordered them to extend their oars back into the water and row for their lives in reverse. But Sphaerus had not doomed them by planting their ram in an irretrievable spot. Their ram pulled away easily, opening a hole in the enemy flagship that sank it to its top rails in minutes.
By the battle’s end the Athenians scattered a superior fleet and captured twelve vessels. The Terror, having disabled three vessels all on her own, distinguished herself most of all. In the seasons that followed she was not always on the winning side; on a number of occasions she survived only by running away. But there was no doubting her value on difficult voyages far from home-including, in the war’s seventh summer, blockade duty around a desert island, with a precarious base of supply and no end in sight.
2.
When Demosthenes presented the Athenians with an opportunity to entrap hundreds of Spartiates, his superiors could hardly deny him. Yet Eurymedon still wouldn’t give up his plans to sail on for Corcyra. He subsequently left with half the fleet, leaving Demosthenes in command with barely enough ships to blockade the island and defend the straits into the bay. Just two ships were enough to keep watch on the enemy during daylight. But after dark, and particularly on the moonless nights toward the beginning of the siege, there was danger that the Lacedaemonians would send small boats or swimmers to help their countrymen, or that the members of the garrison would try to swim for shore. This made it necessary for Demosthenes’ entire fleet to anchor at even intervals around the circumference of Sphacteria. The oarsmen, who were already hungry, overworked, and bored, were forced to take whatever rest they could sitting upright on their benches. Falling over each other in their exhaustion, most gave up sleep altogether. On the Terror, the nocturnal watch therefore became an occasion for lively discussion, whispered but lively over the lap of nighttime swells against the wales.
“Just for your information, you little sprats, do you know why you’re all here, breaking your health in this miserable tub?” asked Patronices.
Dicaearchus, a beam man, had removed the sheepskin cover from his seat and folded it against a bulwark for a pillow. “Of course. It’s because someone decided that the Athenians must have an empire, but did not think of the jealousy it would cause among the Peloponnesians.”
“Wrong! That it exactly what certain people want you to believe, but it isn’t the real truth…”
“It’s a matter of geopolitics, idiot. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“I have heard,” chimed Cleinias from the deck, “that it had to do with the Corinthians encouraging one of our allies to revolt.”
“No, the war is over the way we helped Corcyra in their war with Corinth,” said someone else from the shadows.
“Again, all wrong. What a sad thing it is, to see citizens of Athens giving up their lives for a cause they don’t understand!” declared Patronices.
“All right, slick,” Dicaearchus said as he closed his eyes. “Why don’t you tell us why we’re all here?”
Patronices wiped his face with his oarcloth, for they were stuck in the lee of the island on as stifling a night as he had known in thirty years afloat. “We’re here,” he began, “because of whores. To be more accurate, because of whores of whores. Have any of you spent any time in Megara, among the lovely ladies behind the Temple of Asclepius?”
“All right now, don’t show off…”