History of the Peloponnesian War

And Hermocrates most of all joined in urging them not to be faint-hearted about attacking the Athenians with their ships, saying that with the Athenians also their maritime skill was not a legacy from their fathers or a possession for all time, but that on the contrary they were originally more landsmen than the Syracusans, and had only taken to the sea when forced to do so by the Persians. He added that those who with daring confront daring men like the Athenians appear most formidable to them; for that quality which enables the Athenians to terrorize their neighbours, to whom they are sometimes not superior in power, though they always attack them with confidence—this very quality the Syracusans would likewise exhibit to their opponents.

And lie said that he was well aware that the Syracusans, by daring unexpectedly to make a stand against the Athenian fleet, would have an advantage over them, dismayed as they would be on that account, which would more than outweigh the damage which the Athenians might inflict by their skill on the inexperience of the Syracusans.

He urged them, therefore, to proceed to the trial of their fleet and not to shrink from it. So the Syracusans, under the persuasions of Gylippus, Hermocrates, and perhaps others, were eager for the sea-fight and began to man the slips.

When the fleet was ready, Gylippus led out his whole land-force under cover of night, intending in person to make an assault by land upon the forts of Plemmyrium, and at the same time, on a preconcerted signal, thirty-five Syracusan triremes sailed to the attack from the Great Harbour, while forty-five sailed round from the lesser harbour, where their ship-yard was, purposing to form a junction with those inside the harbour and simultaneously attack Plemmyrium, so that the Athenians, thus assailed from both directions, might be thrown into confusion.

But the Athenians, hastily manning sixty ships to oppose them, with twenty-five engaged the thirty-five Syracusan ships that were in the Great Harbour, and with the rest went to meet the squadron that was sailing round from the ship-yard. And so they at once engaged in battle in front of the mouth of the Great Harbour, and for a long time held out against one another, one side wishing to force the entrance, the other to prevent this.