Book 2
83.4
The commanders of the fleet were such as the cities that set it forth had severally appointed, but of the Corinthians, these: Machon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.
83.5
The Peloponnesians ordered their fleet in such manner as they made thereof a circle as great as, without leaving the spaces so wide as for the Athenians to pass through, they were possibly able with the stems of their galleys outward and sterns inward, and into the midst thereof received such small vessels as came with them and also five of their swiftest galleys, the which were at narrow passages to come forth in whatsoever part the enemy should charge.
84.1
But the Athenians with their galleys ordered one after one in file went round them and shrunk them up together by wiping them ever as they past and putting them in expectation of present fight. But Phormio had before forbidden them to fight till he himself had given them the signal.
84.2
For he hoped that this order of theirs would not last long, as in an army on land, but that the galleys would fall foul of one another and be troubled also with the smaller vessels in the midst. And if the wind should also blow out of the gulf, in expectation whereof he so went round them, and which usually blew there every morning, he made account they would then instantly be disordered. As for giving the onset, because his galleys were more agile than the galleys of the enemy, he thought it was in his own election and would be most opportune on that occasion.
