History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

And the Athenians, when they saw the Corcyraeans were in distress, now aided them manifestly, whereas before, they had abstained from making assault upon any. But when once they fled outright and that the Corinthians lay sore upon them, then everyone fell to the business without making difference any longer; and it came at last to this necessity, that they undertook one another, Corinthians and Athenians.

The Corinthians, when their enemies fled, stayed not to fasten the hulls of the galleys they had sunk unto their own galleys that so they might tow them after, but made after the men, rowing up and down, to kill rather than to take alive, and through ignorance (not knowing that their right wing had been discomfited) slew also some of their own friends.

For the galleys of either side being many and taking up a large space at sea, after they were once in the medley they could not easily discern who were of the victors and who of the vanquished party. For this was the greatest naval battle for number of ships that ever had been before of Grecians against Grecians.

When the Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans to the shore, they returned to take up the broken galleys and bodies of their dead, which for the greatest part they recovered and brought to Sybota where also lay the land forces of the barbarians that were come to aid them. This Sybota is a desert haven of Thesprotis. When they had done, they reunited themselves and made again to the Corcyraeans.