Battle of Naupactus - Prelude

Prelude

In 429 BC, the Spartan government had ordered the navarch Cnemus to launch an offensive in the Corinthian gulf and northwestern Greece aimed at knocking several Athenian allies out of the Peloponnesian War. Ideally, the Spartans hoped to capture the Athenian base at Naupactus, from which the Athenians had been harassing Corinthian shipping. That offensive, however, suffered a severe setback when Cnemus was turned back on land by the Acarnanians at Stratus, while a Peloponnesian fleet of forty-seven ships was routed by Phormio's twenty ships at Rhium. The Spartan government, dismayed by this unexpected reversal, dispatched several advisors (including the aggressive and talented Brasidas) to oversee Cnemus as he resumed the offensive. Phormio, meanwhile, sent to Athens for reinforcements, and twenty ships were sent out to him; these were ordered to first sail to Crete to attack Cydonia, and as a result did not arrive in time to participate in the battle.

Cnemus and the advisors, combining the ships that Cnemus had taken with him to Stratus with those retreating from Rhium and raising more ships levied from Sparta's allies on the gulf, had soon assembled a fleet of seventy-seven ships. The admirals then advanced with this fleet to Panormus, in Achaea, where they met up with the Peloponnesian infantry. Phormio, meanwhile, brought his ships up to Antirrhium, across the strait of Rhium from the Peloponnesians. Here, he was in position to move against the enemy fleet if it attempted to sail west into the open sea; if he allowed it to escape in this way, he would essentially have surrendered Athens' dominance over the sea, and might well have found himself blockaded in Naupactus.