When Thucydides tells us that the "semeion" was raised in the Greek fleet we may, in default of some better explanation, assume that the officer in command seized the cruciform standard and elevated it at arms' length. Such a signal might be rendered more conspicuous by throwing a military cloak of bright colour over the arms of the cross before raising it and, as already remarked, it seems highly probable that the sign known as Phoinikis (φοινικὶς [Greek: phoinikis]) originated in this manner. The earliest recorded instance of a signal at sea is probably that mentioned by Herodotus[338] as having been made by Xerxes in the year 480 B.C., when on quitting Therma in his expedition to Greece he embarked in a Sidonian ship and "gave the signal (σημήιον [Greek: sêmêion]) to the rest of the fleet to get under way." A more characteristic--or more frequently mentioned--use of the "semeion" was as a signal to commence action. The fleet fitted out by the Corinthians against the Corcyreans in the year 433 B.C. met with a joint fleet of Corcyrean and Athenian ships. Both the opposing fleets drew up in rank and the "semeia" were then raised on both sides (τὰ σημεῖα ἑκατέροις ἤρθη [Greek: ta sêmeia hekaterois êrthê]) as a signal for beginning action[339]. Thucydides mentions two other instances[340] in which a fleet awaited the signal before commencing to fight, but the only strictly tactical signal which he has recorded was one made to the Peloponnesian fleet in 429 B.C. The Peloponnesians had enticed the Athenian fleet into a disadvantageous position by a feigned attack upon Naupactus. At a given signal (ἀπὸ σημείον [Greek: apo sêmeion]) the Peloponnesians suddenly turned their ships round and attacked the Athenians[341]. Towards the end of the Peloponnesian War (if we may suppose that Polyaenus, writing in the second century A.D., was not guilty of anachronism) the purple cloak signal (φοινικὶς [Greek: phoinikis]) comes into evidence. Conon, the Athenian commander, was in the year 406 B.C. off Mitylene, flying before Callicratidas the Spartan, who had twice as many ships. Observing that the Lacedaemonian ships had, in the ardour of pursuit, broken their ranks, Conon raised the "Phoinikis," which was the signal he had pre-arranged with the commanders of his ships, and, turning together, the Athenian ships bore down on their pursuers, then in disorder[342]. The Rhodians, in the second century B.C., made signals in the early manner by raising the "signum" or military ensign. Livy relates that Eudamus, when hard pressed in his action against the Syrian fleet under Hannibal (191 B.C.) made use of such a signal to call his unengaged ships to the rescue[343].