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Consequently many leaped on the prows of the hostile ships, when their own had been damaged by another, and were isolated in the midst of their enemies. In some cases they dropped grappling-irons1 and forced their adversaries to fight a land-battle on their ships. [2] Often men whose own ships had been shattered leaped on their opponents' vessels, and by slaying the defenders or pushing them into the sea became masters of their triremes. In a word, over the entire harbour came the crash of ship striking ship and the cry of desperately struggling men slaying and being slain. [3] For when a ship had been intercepted by several triremes and struck by their beaks from every direction, the water would pour in and it would be swallowed together with the entire crew beneath the sea. Some who would be swimming away after their ship had been sunk would be wounded by arrows or slain by the blows of spears. [4] The pilots, as they saw the confusion of the battle, every spot full of uproar, and often a number of ships converging upon a single one, did not know what signal to give, since the same orders were not suitable to all situations, nor was it possible, because of the multitude of missiles, for the oarsmen to keep their eyes upon the men who gave them their orders. [5] In short, not a man could hear any of the commands amid the shattering of boats and the sweeping off of oars,2 as well as amid the uproar of the men in combat on the ships and of their zealous comrades on land. [6] For of the entire beach a part was held by the Athenian infantry and a part by the Syracusans, so that at times the men fighting the sea-battle had as helpers, when along the shore, the soldiers lined up on the land. [7] The spectators on the walls, whenever they saw their own fighters winning, would sing songs of victory, but when they saw them being vanquished, they would groan and with tears offer prayers to the gods. For now and then it happened that some Syracusan triremes would be destroyed along the walls and their crews slain before the eyes of their kinsmen, and parents would witness the destruction of their children, sisters and wives the pitiable end of husbands and brothers.

1 Thuc. 7.65 states that these were a device of the Athenians, against which the Syracusans covered the decks of their ships with hides so that the grappling-irons would not take hold.

2 As one ship brushed by another.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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