Putting all the statements of Thucydidês together, we may be convinced that this is the way in which the facts occurred. But of the precise sense of ὐφορμισάμενοι, I confess I do not feel certain: Haack says, it means “clam appellere ad littus,” but here, I think, that sense will not do: for the Peloponnesians did not wish, and could indeed hardly hope, to conceal from Phormio the spot where they brought to for the night, and to make him suppose that they brought to at some point of the shore west of Patræ, when in reality they passed the night in Patræ,—which is what Dr. Arnold supposes. The shore west of Patræ makes a bend to the southwest,—forming the gulf of Patras,—so that the distance from the northern, or Ætolian and Akarnanian, side of the gulf becomes for a considerable time longer and longer, and the Peloponnesians would thus impose upon themselves a longer crossing, increasing the difficulty of getting over without a battle. But ὐφορμισάμενοι may reasonably be supposed to mean, especially in conjunction with οὐκ ἔλαθον, “taking up a simulated or imperfect night-station,” in which they did not really intend to stay all night, and which could be quitted at short notice and with ease. The preposition ὑπὸ, in composition, would thus have the sense, not of _secrecy_ (_clam_) but of _sham-performance_, or of mere going through the forms of an act for the purpose of making a false impression (like ὑποφέρειν, Xenoph. Hell. iv, 72). Mr. Bloomfield proposes conjecturally ἀφορμισάμενοι, meaning, “that the Peloponnesians slipped their anchors in the night:” I place no faith in the conjecture, but I believe him to be quite right in supposing, that the Peloponnesians _did actually_ slip their anchors in the night. Another point remains to be adverted to. The battle took place κατὰ μέσον τὸν πορθμόν. Now we need not understand this expression to allude to the narrowest part of the sea, or the strait, strictly and precisely; that is, the line of seven stadia between Rhium and Antirrhium. But I think we must understand it to mean a portion of sea not far westward of the strait, where the breadth, though greater than that of the strait itself, is yet not so great as it becomes in the line drawn northward from Patræ. We cannot understand πορθμὸς (as Mr. Bloomfield and Poppo do,—see the note of the latter on the Scholia) to mean _trajectus_ simply, that is to say, the passage across even the widest portion of the gulf of Patras: nor does the passage cited out of c. 86 require us so to understand it. Πορθμὸς, in Thucydidês, means a strait, or narrow crossing of sea, and Poppo himself admits that Thucydidês always uses it so: nor would it be reasonable to believe that he would call the line of sea across the gulf, from Patræ to the mouth of the Euenus, a πορθμός. See the note of Göller, on this point.