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The harbor at Pylos, 425 B.C.*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Robert B. Strassler
Robert B. Strassler
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287 Kent Street #6, Brookline MA. 02146
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Extract

Thucydides' full description of the harbor at Pylos is part of his discussion of the Spartan strategy for the campaign (iv 8).

. . . and the Lacedaimonians . . . expected the Attic fleet from Zacynthos to come to the rescue and intended, if they had not captured Pylos by that time, to block up the entrances to the harbor, so that the Athenians could not sail in and use it as an anchorage. (The island called Sphacteria extends alongside the harbor, and lies close to it: hence the anchorage is safe and the entrances narrow–the entrance by Pylos and the Athenian fortifications giving a passage for two ships through the channel, and the entrance by the mainland on the other side a passage for eight or nine . . . ) These entrances then, they intended to block up tightly with ships lying parallel to each other, prows to the enemy: and since they were frightened that the Athenians might use Sphacteria as a military base, they ferried hoplites across to it, and stationed others along the mainland. By this plan, they thought, the Athenians would find both the island to be enemy-occupied and the mainland, which gave them no chance of landing (for the coast of Pylos itself, outside the entrance and towards the open sea, is harborless, and would give them no base of operations to help their troops): and equally they themselves would probably be able to capture the place by siege, without a sea-battle or any unnecessary danger–there was no food in it, and it had not been properly prepared for a siege. This, then, was their agreed plan . . .

Although one would think this a clear and detailed geographic description, historians have not yet found a location at Pylos for the harbor which satisfactorily matches it.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 108 , November 1988 , pp. 198 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1988

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References

1 All Thucydidean references are from book iv unless otherwise noted, and all translations from Thucydides are from Wilson, J. B., Pylos 425 BC, a historical and topographical study of Thucydides’ account of the campaign (Warminster, Wilts. 1979)Google Scholar.

2 Grundy, G. B., JHS xvi (1896) 1–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pritchett, W. K., Studies in ancient Greek topography i (Berkeley 1965) 6–29Google Scholar. Pritchett's evaluation, that in 425 the sandbar was in existence and the lagoon could not have been a harbor, was also corroborated by Loy, William G. and Wright, H. E. Jr, ‘The Physical Setting’, McDonald, William A. and Rapp, George R. Jr (edd.), The Minnesota Messenia expedition (Minneapolis 1972) 46.Google Scholar

3 Wilson (n. 1). See 144-5 for the map and aerial photograph.

4 Gomme, A. W., HCT iii (Oxford 1956) 482–3Google Scholar.

5 Grundy (n. 2) 42 ff.

6 Wilson (n. 1) 74-7, n. 5 and n. 10.

7 Ibid. 54-60.

8 Ibid. 59.

9 Ibid. 57-8.

10 More sheltered waters existed nearby. For most winds, the Sikia channel and the waters off the north shore of the bay were good anchorage.

11 Wilson (n. 1) 80.

12 For examples of this, see Burrows, R. M., JHS xvi (1896) 75Google Scholar; and Kagan, Donald, The Archidamian war (Ithaca, N.Y. 1974) 230Google Scholar.

13 See ‘Notes to the third general meeting held on March 30, 1896’, JHS xvi (1896) xliiGoogle Scholar.

14 Thuc. ii 89, Phormio's speech is to the point.

15 See Wilson's (n. 1) discussion, 89, note 1, and that of H.D. Westlake, ‘The naval battle at Pylos and its consequences’, CQ v 24 (1974) 215.

16 This answers Gomme's complaint (n. 4) 485, that Thucydides ‘having said that a fleet at first had no base should explain how it afterwards secured one.’ Wilson's [(n. 1) 59] explanation for the Athenian failure to go to the cove is not convincing.

17 The Athenians might have refused to attack because it was late in the day, because they needed to stow masts and other gear before combat as Wilson (n. 1)81 suggests, or because they were surprised by the Spartan strategy and needed time to plan a response.

18 Bauslaugh, R. A., JHS xcix (1979) 4Google Scholar.

19 Wilson's (n. 1) concept of the Spartan plan is unique and perhaps deserves some comment even though it is not the strongest part of his otherwise excellent book. He himself cautioned that solutions to this problem ‘should be regarded as more than usually tentative’ (p. 73). See his Note F, pp. 73-84.

Concluding that Thucydides’ harbor could only be the entire Bay of Navarino and that the southern entrance of that bay was not blockable, and noticing that the entrance to the Voidokoilia cove north of Pylos (Figure 1) had the correct dimension—120 yards—for a 4:1 ratio with the 35 yard Tortori channel, Wilson hypothesized that these last were the channels which the Spartans had planned to block. Thus Thucydides was right about blocking two narrow entrances, right about their proportions and dimensions, but wrong that they were both entrances to a single harbor.

Wilson then argues that the Voidokoilia blockline would have served to prevent the Athenians from landing troops at this cove behind the besieging Spartan forces. Not only would this be a very minor role for almost half the fleet, but given the degree of surprise suffered both by that fleet in the harbor battle, and by the annihilated southern contingent of hoplites on Sphacteria, it seems unlikely that the Spartans were taking any precautions against surprise, much less setting up naval blocklines for that purpose.

The single Tortori channel blockline would indeed have forced the Athenians to forego the use of the Sikia channel if it could have been maintained, but it would have been vulnerable to simultaneous attack from both directions (unless it was doubled and facing out to both sides which Thucydides does not say that it was).

Wilson's scheme would have divided the Peloponnesian fleet into two separated forces which could not have supported each other, one of which (and perhaps both) would have been less numerous than the Athenian fleet. Moreover, it would not have prevented the Athenians from using the cove beach. In the absence of a blockable harbor, Wilson's militarily implausible concept has all the merits of creative, if not desperate ingenuity, but when set against the cove harbor hypothesis, it must give way.

20 Grundy (n. 2) 32; Wilson (n. t) 90.

21 See Thuc. vii 53 concerning the Syracusan fire ship of 413 BC. Also iv 67 for boat raiders from Megara who operated at night.

22 See Thuc. ii 91 for a discussion of the vulnerability of ships at rest near ships in motion.

23 There need be no contradiction between Thucydides’ description of a harbor that ‘is not small’ (14.1) and a pursuit there ‘in the narrow space’ (14.1) because whatever the harbor's size, the battle could have taken place near shore, leaving little room for pursuit. If in fact it did occur at the cove harbor entrances, Thucydides himself describes these as narrow straits near which land would necessarily be found and the space for pursuit would naturally be constricted.