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Cnemus was the Spartan fleet commander during
the second and third years (430/29) of the Archidamian War. During his command,
Cnemus oversaw a series of operations that met with failure. As a result, the
Spartans began to question Cnemus' leadership and sent several advisers to
assist him in his command.
Military Service:
Zacynthian Campaign Cnemus' earliest recorded military operation during the
Archidamian War occurred in the summer of 430, at the island of Zacynthus.
Because Zacynthus was populated by Achaeans who had allied themselves with
Athens, Cnemus led an expedition, made up of Spartans and their allies, against
the island. The expeditionary force consisted of 100 ships, carrying a total of
1000 Spartan hoplites. Although Cnemus' forces destroyed much of Zacynthus,
when they realized that the island's population would refuse to surrender, the
expeditionary force returned home, having achieved little.
Acarnanian Campaign:
The summer following the Zacynthian Campaign (429), Cnemus led an expedition
against Acarnania. Two of Sparta's allies, the Ambraciots and Chaonians, had
convinced the Spartans to invade Acarnania with the purpose of eventually
capturing the islands of Cephallenia and Zacynthus. As the Ambraciots and
Chaonians argued, if the campaign succeeded, the Spartans would gain strategic
positions, thus enabling them to complicate the Athenians' navigation around
the Peloponnesus. As a result of these urgings, the Spartans decided to send a
land force, led by Cnemus, to the Ambracian Gulf to prepare for the invasion of
Acarnania. At the same time, Spartan allies including Corinth, Sicyon, Leucas,
Anactorium, and Ambracia prepared to send a fleet to limit the coastal
Acarnanians' ability to move against the Spartan land force in the Acarnanian
interior. Cnemus' land force consisted of both Hellenes and barbarians. The
Hellenic forces included 1000 Spartan hoplites, as well as Ambraciots,
Leucadians, and Anactorians. In addition to 1000 Chaonians, the barbarian
forces included Thesprotians and Molossians, among others. Upon the land
force’s arrival in the Ambracian Gulf, rather than waiting for the allied
fleet to arrive as well, Cnemus began advancing his troops towards the
Acarnanian capital of Stratus, destroying the Amphilochian village of Limnaea
along the way. Cnemus believed that with the conquest of Stratus, the rest of
Acarnania would quickly fall under Spartan control. As the land force
approached Stratus, Cnemus divided his troops into three divisions. The left
division was constituted of Spartans and Ambraciots, with Cnemus himself
leading. The center division contained Chaonians and other barbarians. The
right division was made up of Leucadians and Anactorians. Cnemus’ plan was
that the three divisions would encamp outside Stratus and would regroup to
attack the city’s walls if negotiations with the Stratians failed.
However, as the left and right divisions (the Hellenic divisions) found
suitable positions and began to encamp, the center division, led by the
Chaonians, continued to advance. Without making Cnemus or the other divisions
aware of their intentions, the center division sought to capture Stratus alone
because, according to the historian Thucydides, they hoped to secure all the
glory of the battle for themselves. Seeing the center division's advance, the
Stratians entrenched themselves and prepared ambushes throughout the city. Upon
its arrival, the center division was engaged by the Stratians in close combat.
Caught by surprise, the center division was routed and fled back to
Cnemus’ camp. The encamped divisions, only realizing what had happened as
the center division fled into their midst, formed ranks and held their position
for the rest of the day. The Stratians, lacking reinforcements, did not engage
Cnemus’ land force further. That night, Cnemus moved his forces away from
Stratus. The next day, knowing that Acarnanian reinforcements were coming from
the coast, he retreated to the allied city of Oeniadae. From Oeniadae, the land
force disbanded, each group returning to its native country.
At the same time as the battle at Stratus, the fleet that was supposed to
support Cnemus was drawn into battle at Naupactus by the Athenian admiral
Phormio. Not having expected to engage in a sea battle, the Spartan fleet
consisted primarily of ships suited only for transporting troops rather than
for fighting. This, along with the fact that
Phormio’s men were
more experienced in naval warfare than the Spartans, gave Phormio the
confidence to attack the Spartans’ forty-seven ships with his twenty.
Taking advantage of the Spartan fleet’s inexperience, Phormio developed a
strategy to create confusion among the Spartan ships and was thus able to rout
their forces, capturing twelve enemy ships by the end of the battle. The
surviving Spartan ships sailed to Cyllene, where they regrouped with Cnemus.
Aftermath of the Acarnanian Campaign:
Upon receiving news of the failure of the Acarnanian Campaign, the Spartans
became greatly dissatisfied with Cnemus’ command of the fleet. Although
Cnemus was not present at the Spartan naval force’s defeat at Naupactus,
himself being engaged at the time in Stratus, because he was the commander for
the entire expedition, the Spartans held Cnemus responsible. As a result, three
commissioners, Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron, were sent by the Spartans
to make up for what they perceived as Cnemus’ lack of energy and to help
him reorganize the fleet. The Spartans, for their part, were unwilling to
concede that the smaller Athenian naval force had defeated the Spartan fleet at
Naupactus because of their greater experience at sea.
Second Naval Battle at Naupactus:
With the arrival of the three Spartan commissioners at Cyllene, Phormio began
to prepare his ships for a second naval battle. Cnemus now had seventy-seven
ships under his command and set anchor at Achaean Rhium. Phormio, with the same
twenty ships from his victory at Naupactus, set anchor at Molycrian Rhium,
directly across the Spartans at the mouth of the Crisaean Gulf. Aware that
Phormio had sent to Athens for reinforcements, Cnemus and the other Spartan
commanders sought to engage the Athenians as soon as possible. They also
desired to wage the battle between the Rhia, so that the Athenians would be
unable to employ the same strategy they had used at the first battle of
Naupactus. Seeing that the Spartan troops were afraid of the prospect of
battle, however, Cnemus and the Spartan commanders had to give a speech of
encouragement to their troops before they could begin the engagement. The
speech largely consisted of extolling the Spartans’ native valor and their
superiority of numbers, as well as blaming the previous defeat at Naupactus on
bad luck and the Spartans’ lack of naval experience. Because Cnemus and
the Spartan commanders desired to wage the battle in the narrows between the
Rhia, they ordered their ships to sail towards Corinth in the hope that Phormio
would interpret their departure as a move to attack the now-unguarded Naupactus
and would follow them into the narrows. It is not clear whether this was
Cnemus’ plan or the plan of one of his advisers; nonetheless, Cnemus was
responsible for agreeing to implement the plan. Phormio, taking the
Spartans’ bait, ordered his ships to sail along the shore, in single file,
towards Naupactus. Taking advantage of the Athenians’ exposed position,
the Spartans quickly turned their formation, hoping to cut the Athenians off
before they reached Naupactus. Eleven of the Athenian ships escaped the
Spartans’ maneuver; nine ships were disabled by the Spartans. With the
destruction of nearly half the Athenian fleet, the Spartan strategy seemed to
be a success. The eleven remaining Athenian ships fled to Naupactus, pursued by
twenty Spartan ships. Ten of the Athenian ships made it to the shore of
Naupactus and positioned themselves so as to repel an attack, should the
Spartans pursue them further. However, one Athenian ship remained in open water
and was being closely pursued by a single Spartan ship. Suddenly turning
around, the Athenian ship sank its pursuer. The rest of the pursuing Spartans,
having become careless in their premature sense of victory and surprised by the
sight of one of their own ships sunk by an enemy that had ostensibly been
retreating, were suddenly overcome by a sense of panic. The Spartans quickly
halted their pursuit and, as a consequence of their lack of familiarity with
the local geography, ran several of their ships aground. Taking advantage of
the chaos among the Spartans, the Athenians launched an attack in which they
captured six Spartan ships and recovered the nine ships they had lost earlier.
The Spartans proceeded to retreat to Panormus. Among the Spartan dead was
Cnemus’ advisor, Timocrates, who, having been on board the first Spartan
ship to be sunk, killed himself out of shame. Although both sides later claimed
victory, the Spartans, concerned about immanent Athenian reinforcement,
retreated to Corinth.
Plot to Capture the Piraeus:
After arriving in Corinth, Cnemus and Brasidas allowed the Megarians to
convince them to launch an attack on Athens’ port, the Piraeus. Although
the blame for the Spartans’ second defeat at Naupactus lay primarily on
the inexperience of their sailors, Cnemus’ willingness to retreat to
Corinth rather than re-engage the Athenians cemented the Spartans’
perception that he was lacking in energy as a leader. Therefore, although it is
not explicitly known why Cnemus and Brasidas agreed to the Megarian plan, some
scholars have speculated that neither man was eager to return to Sparta without
having gained at least one victory. Crossing from Corinth to Megara, the
Spartans planned to launch forty ships and take the Athenians by surprise. The
Athenians, aware of their naval superiority, never expected an open naval
attack against the Piraeus. As a result, there was no fleet positioned to
defend the port. Although the execution of the Megarian plan initially seemed
to go well, on the night that the Spartans began to sail to the Piraeus, they
became afraid of the risk involved and altered their plan to the less ambitious
goal of attacking the Athenian fort on Salamis. Although it is unknown who was
responsible for the decision to abort the plan of attacking the Piraeus,
certain scholars claim that Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian
War, implies Cnemus was responsible. When the Spartans attacked, they took the
Athenians by surprise, capturing three Athenian ships and wreaking damage
throughout the island. However, the Salaminians were able to send a signal to
Athens, notifying them of the attack. The Athenians, thinking that the Spartans
were either already attacking the Piraeus or just about to attack, fell into a
panic. The following day, the Athenians mustered a ground force to bolster the
defenses of the Piraeus and launched their fleet to defend Salamis. The
Spartans, becoming aware of this, fled back to Megara. As a result of this
incident, the Athenians developed a number of measures to better guard the
Piraeus in the future. However, Cnemus and Brasidas had finally achieved a
victory that allowed them to return to Sparta without disgrace.
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