There is however no necessary discrepancy with Thucydides. Helbig[1576] points out that all Dipylon fights seem to be duels between single pairs of ships. Most of these Dipylon warships are depicted on huge vases that took the place of tombstones, so that the single ship, or ship-duel, might be explained by the single sea-captain who lay beneath[1577]. But against this explanation must be set the single ships and single ship fights on smaller Dipylon vases and the naval duel on the vase signed by Aristonothos, probably an Argive potter of the first half of the seventh century (fig. 46)[1578]. One late Dipylon fragment (fig. 45. _d_)[1579] shows a ship’s crew fighting warriors on land, and the vessel’s prow, in which Helbig sees the form of a horse’s head, is thought by him to indicate that it came from Caria or Phoenicia, where this kind of prow ornament is known to have been used[1580]. The horse’s head is not very distinct. Its identification is regarded as uncertain by Furtwaengler[1581]. At the best it is not decisive for Helbig’s inference. But he is probably right, when he sees in the Athenian ships of the Dipylon period a naval force intended to protect Attica against pirates[1582], which may never have fought a pitched battle at all[1583]. Some such state of things as Helbig outlined is required to explain the behaviour of the naval forces of the combatants in the early Aeginetan war. The war is described as occurring just after the Aeginetans had built ships and become masters of the sea[1584]. The fleet may have been the outcome of the shipbuilding recorded in the Hesiodic Eoiai, where it is said of the Aeginetans that they “were the first to fashion ships with oars on either side, and first to set up sails, the wings of the ship that crosses the sea[1585].” The thalassocracy must have been local[1586], and may well mean simply that Aegina had outstripped Athens, and become the leading member of the Kalaurian league, though possibly it is to be associated with the early Aeginetan settlement at Naukratis[1587]. The Athenians claimed to have sent only a single ship to Aegina. But this appears to have been the version of the official bulletin, with the incapacity apparently inherent in such documents for describing a serious reverse as such. “The Aeginetans said that the Athenians had come not with one ship but with many[1588].” That Athens too possessed a fleet is implied when Herodotus says that the Argives crossed to Aegina undetected[1589]. Yet there is no hint of a sea battle. Both sides have their explanation[1590], but neither is very satisfactory. The state of things implied by Herodotus’ narrative of the Aeginetan war is remarkably like that pictured by Helbig for the time of the naval activities of the Dipylon ships.