Perhaps the most common method of dispatching defeated seamen was to sail amid the wreckage and spear them like fish. The accepted idea was that the battle was not quite over, and thus men clinging to enemy wreckage were still fair game and could be killed without moral censure or fear of reprisals. After the battle off the Sybota Islands, the Corinthian ships rowed among the wreckage killing all the Corcyraean survivors they could find. So intent were they on finishing off the helpless enemy that they ignored towing back the damaged ships and finally even inadvertently began
