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The Periplous

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Ian Whitehead
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Extract

The naval tactic, the periplous, referred to by both Thucydides and Xenophon has yet to be convincingly identified by any scholar. πɛρπλους and πɛριπλω are widely used in their non-tactical sense to mean ‘a voyage round a stretch of coast’, and ‘to sail round’. The only passages in which we can be certain that Thucydides and Xenophon are writing about the naval tactic are not accounts of battles but passages setting the scene for naval battles, theorizing about sea warfare. The problem then is to separate and identify the tactical from the normal usage. If we study the nature of the theoretical periplous referred to by Thucydides and Xenophon, and then look for a battle manoeuvre of a similar nature, we may be able to make that distinction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , October 1987 , pp. 178 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

1. Thuc. 7.36.3; 7.36.4. Xen. Hell. 1.6.31.

2. By Thucydides, twenty-eight times the verb; four times the noun.

3. Thuc. 7.36.3.

4. Thuc. 7.36.4. As will become clear later I take στɛνοχωρα here to mean lack of space in depth, not lack of space in width.

5. Xen. Hell. 1.6.31.

6. Above, 170–78. I am very grateful to John Lazenby for reading a draft of this article and for his helpful comments; also to Liz Lazenby for drawing the diagrams.

7. Thuc. 7.36.4.

8. Hdt. 8.10.

9. Morrison, J. S. and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 137 and 139Google Scholar, Morrison, J. S. and Coates, J. F., The Athenian Trireme (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 43, 53, etc.Google Scholar

10. Hdt. 8.10. (κνκλουντο), Thuc. 3.78.1. (πɛρικὺκλωσιν), Polybius 1.28.9. (κνκλομɛνοι), 1.28.11. (κυκλώσαντɛσ).

11. Hdt. 8.10.

12. Thuc. 3.78.1. See also that the Peloponnesians plan, if Phormio is drawn to defend Naupactus, πɛρικλῄσɛιαν not a periplous (Thuc. 2.90.3).

13. Hdt. 8.10.

14. Thuc. 3.77–78. Apart from the actions of the Athenian ships which clearly show them to have been superior to their opponents, the elite sacred vessels, the Paralos and the Salaminian were present.

15. Greek Oared Ships, p. 316.

16. Thuc. 2.84.

17. Thuc. 3.78.

18. Xen. Hell. 1.6.29–31. The Athenians are drawn up in two lines to counteract the Spartan diekplous but apparently not their periplous.

19. Thuc. 2.84. Thuc. 3.78.

20. Thuc. 7.40.

21. Thuc. 2.90–92.

22. Thuc. 2.91.

23. Thuc. 2.89. Phormio implies that all his ships are more skilful than those of the enemy.

24. Polybius 1.51.4–8.

25. Thuc. 2.89.8.

26. Thuc. 7.36.4.

27. Xen. Hell. 1.6.31.

28. Polybius 16.4.10.

29. Xen. Hell. 6.2.21.

30. Xen. Hipparch. 8.23ff.

31. Xen. Ages. 2.3, Hell. 4.3.6ff.

32. Polybius 16.4.14.

33. Morrison, and Coates, , op. cit. (n. 9), pp. 221–2Google Scholar.