History of the Peloponnesian War

The Syracusans, meanwhile, hearing of their approach, wished to make another trial with their fleet, and also with their land-force, which they had been collecting for the very purpose of striking a blow before the Athenian reinforcements came.

They had prepared the fleet generally in such a way as, after the experience of the former sea-fight, seemed likely to offer some advantage, and in particular had shortened the prows of the ships, and had made them stouter by attaching to them thick catheads and stretching underneath stay-beams extending from them to the ships' sides for the length of six cubits both inside and outside the vessel, adopting the same plan as that followed by the Corinthians when they reconstructed their ships at the prows for the battle fought against the Athenian fleet at Naupactus.