Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy

by John R. Hale

  All of Attica was then beautified and invigorated as new temples arose to the sea god Poseidon at Cape Sunium, to the vengeful goddess Nemesis at Rhamnous, and to the great goddesses Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. On a hill above the Agora, overlooking the smoky kilns and casting pits, rose a temple to the craftsman god Hephaestus. Outshining all the other buildings were the new Parthenon and the Propylaea, gateway to the Acropolis.

  These marble edifices were the crown of Pericles’ ambitious building program and indeed of Athens as well: matchless in grandeur, poise, and harmony. The Parthenon dominated the artificial terrace on the south side of the Acropolis, rising above the massive retaining wall that had been constructed after Cimon’s victory at the Eurymedon. To ornament the new statue of Athena inside the Parthenon, some of the city’s haul of gold was hammered into sheets. These were then molded into elaborate folds to represent the goddess’s robe, setting off the pieces of lustrous ivory that formed her face and arms. In the hand of Athena, Phidias placed an image of the winged goddess Nike (“Victory”), looking as if she had just descended from Mount Olympus to place a victor’s wreath upon the brow of Athens.

  For all its resplendent decoration and sacred images, the Parthenon had a practical side as well. Phidias’ gold and ivory statue not only greeted visitors to the Parthenon but also guarded the hoard of tribute from the Athenian allies, now secured in a special chamber at the west end of the building. Pericles also directed that the gold plating should be removable so that in time of need the metal could be taken off and melted down to pay for ships and other armaments. The Parthenon combined the functions of a temple and a treasury, while serving also as a victory monument for all Athens’ triumphs during the Persian Wars. Not far from the temple stood a massive marble stele inscribed with a record of the annual tribute payments from the allies or, more specifically, with a tally of the sixtieth part of each ally’s tribute (one drachma per mina of silver) that was given to Athena as her share in the enterprise.

  During the Golden Age the city fostered geniuses in many fields. Indeed, the field of history was actually invented at this time. While the Parthenon was under construction, a visitor to Athens named Herodotus was offering public recitations on the Persian Wars, that epic contest that led to the emergence of Athenian thalassocracy. Born at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, Herodotus had been a young boy when Queen Artemisia returned with her triremes after the battle of Salamis. As a man he traveled widely, collecting stories from veterans on both sides.

  In time Herodotus came to view the Persian Wars, and indeed all of Hellenic history, as a series of conflicts between East and West, Asia and Europe. The saga started when ancient seafarers from one continent kidnapped women from the other. The abductions of the Greek princess Io, the Phoenician princess Europa, the Asiatic sorceress Medea, and even Helen of Troy were hostile acts and reprisals in this age-old struggle. He then traced the conflict through the rise of the Persian Empire and its epic collision with the free cities of Greece. The impact of Herodotus’ theorizing was so profound that it changed the meaning of the word historia. Before Herodotus it had meant no more than “inquiry” or “research”—the term that he himself applied to his epic work. After him it designated a new branch of human intellectual endeavor: the quest to compile a record of events that would uncover root causes and recurring patterns.

  The stories recorded by Herodotus confirmed two controversial Athenian claims: their right to the leadership of the Greeks, and the justice of their maritime empire. Herodotus indeed concluded that the Ionians had been subjugated by the Athenians because they were unfit to maintain their own liberty. He exposed their flawed character in the tales of the great naval battle of Lade that ended the Ionian revolt against Persia, when the Ionian crews refused to submit to the arduous training in rowing and seamanship that might have granted them victory. In considering the rise of Athens, Herodotus expressed a view that he knew would fly in the face of popular opinion among many readers outside Athens. “If the Athenians, through fear of the approaching danger of Xerxes, had abandoned their country, or if they had stayed in Greece and submitted to the Persians, there would have been no attempt to resist the Persians by sea. In view of this, therefore, one is surely right to say that Greece was saved by the Athenians.”

  While Herodotus studied history and geography, Sophocles addressed himself to questions of ethics, morals, and human destiny. The son of a sword manufacturer, Sophocles had been in the public eye since his youth, when he led the victory dance for Salamis. In addition to commanding an Athenian naval squadron as a general in the Samian War, he had also held the position of Hellenotamias, one of the “treasurers of the Greeks” who supervised the tribute from the allies. Names were believed to hold great significance, so it is not surprising that Sophocles, whose name was a compound of “Wisdom” and “Glory,” seemed the right man for almost any job.

  Sophocles brought the sea and ships into his dramas. An unflattering description of a cowardly trierarch is so vivid that it seems drawn from his own experience as general with the fleet. “I’ve heard a man, a bully with his tongue, ordering his crew to put to sea in dirty weather. Aboard, and in the thick of the storm, you’d always find him speechless, hiding his head beneath his cloak, and letting any man walk over him.” In other tragedies Sophocles charted the “sea of troubles” that overwhelmed his heroes and heroines, or compared a government to a “ship of state.” He also dramatized the divine punishments meted out to men who were guilty of hubris. To a Greek, hubris was more than arrogance. It was arrogant, wanton violence against others, yet it seemed difficult to control an empire without it.

  At the Dionysia festival in Athens, the staging of new plays was preceded by an imperial pageant. After the thousands of Athenians and their guests had taken their seats, a procession of porters emerged from the wings into the circular orchestra, the area where the chorus traditionally sang and danced. Each porter carried a portion of the annual tribute money that had arrived that spring from the allied cities. In a stately parade they carried the hundreds of silver talents in front of the citizens, a reminder of the great wealth that came to Athens over the sea. Only when the treasure had been shown to the people could the dramatic competition proceed.

  The Athenian people celebrated the start of a new civic year at midsummer with a festival called the Panathenaea. By the time of Pericles this festival had become a citywide celebration of Athens, its maritime empire, and the goddess under whose aegis both had prospered. During the days of this festival the city was alive with processions, feasts, religious rites, displays of sacred regalia, and competitions for athletes and artists. All the pride that the Athenians felt in their achievements and their city was shown to men and gods during these days of summer.

  Among the sporting events of the Panathenaea was a rowing race for triremes. Each of the ten Attic tribes entered its own tribal ship in the regatta, with a crew of young citizens to man the oars. The tribe whose trireme won the race received a prize of three hundred drachmas and two bulls from the organizers of the festival. An additional prize of two hundred drachmas was presented to the crew, one drachma per man, to cover the costs of the victory banquet.

  The highlight of the Panathenaea was a grand parade. Young and old, men and women, Athenians and foreigners—all took part. The daughters of the resident aliens carried jars of holy water. Freed slaves carried oak branches. Envoys from the cities and islands of the empire led cattle that would be sacrificed to the goddess. They also brought shining panoplies of hoplite arms and armor as gifts to the city. The centerpiece of the procession was a little galley mounted on wheels that was called the Panathenaic ship. Before the start of the procession many citizens joined in the symbolic ritual of grasping long ropes to raise the mast and hoist the yardarm.

  The climactic moment came with the unfurling of the sail. For nine months young girls of old Athenian families had been weaving and embroidering a beautiful new robe or peplos, the city’s bir
thday gift for their goddess. Now their handiwork adorned the sail of the sacred ship. The design, glowing with purple and saffron dyes, showed Athena triumphing over the giants in the great battle of gods and titans. The people caught their first glimpse of the new robe as the ship rolled through the Potters’ Quarter and the Agora, billowing in the summer breeze. The sail with the peplos was suspended high in the air above a “crew” of priests and priestesses crowned with golden garlands. At the far side of the Agora the slope up to the Acropolis became too steep for this elaborate parade float. Here the sail was taken down, to be carried on foot up the long flights of marble steps to the sunlit summit. In a final act of reverence, the new robe was offered to the goddess, whose ancient wooden image was the holiest possession of the Athenian people. It was fitting that each year the Athenians presented their patron deity with a robe that was also a sail. With this act of devotion they reminded themselves, their maritime allies, and the world at large that Athens, from its harbors right up to its highest citadel, was a city wedded to the sea.

  CHAPTER 10

  War and Pestilence [433-430 B.C.]

  Here is the rock that strands me now:

  With one side or the other it must come to war.

  That’s as sure as a ship’s hull pegged tight.

  Nowhere do I see safe, untroubled harborage.

  —Aeschylus

  ON A LATE SUMMER MORNING, AS WORK ON THE PARTHENON was drawing to completion, a squadron of ten fast triremes rowed out of the Piraeus bound for the west of Greece. Though small, the squadron was top-heavy with brass, as it carried no fewer than three Athenian generals. One was Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon and grandson of Miltiades, victor of Marathon. With him were the generals Proteas and Diotimus, the latter of whom had visited in the course of his travels both the court of the Great King in the east and the Bay of Naples in the west. No practical military purpose could be served by putting three generals in command of ten ships. Their mission was not to make war but to prevent it.

  As the little squadron pursued its course around the Peloponnese, Lacedaemonius and his colleagues had ample time to reflect on the difficulties that lay ahead. In their direst imaginings, however, they could never have predicted that their expedition to the island of Corcyra would renew dormant hostilities with the Spartans and ultimately embroil Athens in the most destructive of all its conflicts, the Peloponnesian War.

  Pericles had just turned sixty, and Athens’ maritime empire was basking in peace and prosperity. A seemingly insignificant cloud had appeared on the horizon a couple of years earlier, when a war blew up between Corcyra and Corinth. Athenian steersmen knew Corcyra well: its harbors were the last stations in Greek waters for ships bound northward into the Adriatic Sea or westward to Italy. Almost from the time the Corinthians established a colony on Corcyra, many generations earlier, the islanders had been at odds with their mother city. The earliest known naval battle in Greek history had in fact been fought between these two antagonists, and the Corcyraeans had won. That battle was now ancient history, but disputes between mother city and colony had flared up once more in the days of the Persian Wars. Themistocles himself was called upon to act as arbitrator.

  Now hostilities had erupted again. Faced with the prospect of contending against not only the Corinthians but also other maritime cities of the Spartan alliance, the stiff-necked and friendless Corcyraeans unbent from their policy of isolation and asked the Athenians to accept them as allies. When the Corinthians got wind of the Corcyraean embassy, they sent envoys of their own to Athens. The deputation from Corinth urged the Assembly to turn down the Corcyraean alliance and adhere to the spirit of the Thirty Years’ Peace. After the first day of debate the Assembly seemed ready to reject any involvement in this distant conflict. Afterward, talking over the question with friends and families, the Athenians began to envision the advantages of an alliance with Corcyra. That night many dreamed of extending their empire westward to Italy and Sicily or even into the realms of the Etruscans and Carthaginians.

  Next morning the citizens climbed up to the Pnyx in a changed mood. They consented to a purely defensive alliance, promising to aid Corcyra in the event of an enemy attack on the island. The Assembly then voted to send a squadron of ten triremes to Corcyra. Three Athenian generals would act as observers of the conflict, and their presence would remind the Corinthians that the island was now an Athenian ally. Under no circumstances were they to launch an attack on Corinthians. Only if Corinthian ships attempted to land on Corcyra were the Athenian generals authorized to use force.

  At Corcyra the three Athenian generals found that their new allies had assembled a fleet of 110 triremes. After some twenty days of suspense, messengers brought word that a large enemy fleet was approaching from the Gulf of Corinth. At once the Corcyraeans and Athenians launched their ships and moved southward to meet it. They planned to face the enemy in the opening of the gulf that divided the southern cape of Corcyra from the mainland, a wide and troubled stretch of water where the currents running up the coast met the winds that blew down the channel. The ten Athenian ships took up a position supporting the Corcyraean right wing at the southernmost tip of the island, where an expanse of shoals made navigation hazardous. To their left the line of Corcyraean triremes stretched away toward a pair of steep and rocky islets called the Sybota Islands.

  Shortly after dawn triremes began to appear in the open sea to the south. The size of the enemy force was alarming. To their own ninety ships the Corinthians had been able to add sixty from their own allies and colonies. An army of barbarian warriors from tribes friendly to Corinth followed the fleet on the mainland shore. The lookouts on the Corinthian ships had no difficulty in picking out the Athenians, easily identified in the morning light by the gilded figures of Athena on their triremes. The Corinthians accordingly formed a battle line with their allies on the right wing, so that their own best ships would confront the Athenian “observers.” If they induced Lacedaemonius and the other Athenians to attack them, then the Thirty Years’ Peace could be considered broken. And if the Spartans could then be persuaded to make war on Athens with the full force of their Peloponnesian alliance, Athenian naval power would surely be humbled, leaving room for Corinth to recover its ancient position as mistress of the seas.

  Except for the ten triremes from Athens, the ships on both sides were crowded with hoplites, archers, and javelin throwers. This use of galleys as mere floating platforms for soldiers struck the Athenians, holding aloof, as very primitive. They would see no sophisticated ramming maneuvers, no displays of skill from steersmen or rowers. As the two lines surged forward and collided, the ships became locked together in a great crush. The decks then became a floating battlefield. Amid a din of shouts and cheers the troops forged across onto the enemy ships that were caught alongside their own.

  From their station the Athenians saw the Corcyraean triremes on the distant left wing making short work of the Megarians and the other allied contingents. After the first reverses most of the enemy ships broke free and fled south into the open sea. Nothing could prevent the jubilant Corcyraeans from abandoning their own line and giving chase. Discipline and tactical sense were thrown to the winds by these western Greeks, not giving a thought to the battle that still hung in the balance behind them.

  On the other wing the fighting followed a different course, as the presence of the Athenian ships gave the advantage to the Corcyraeans. Initially the Athenians were able to keep the enemy at bay without actually striking a blow. As a Corinthian ship bore down on an opponent, one of the ten Athenian triremes would move up to threaten its flank. Frustrated and fearful, the Corinthians would veer off or back away from their targets. For all their skill and speed, however, the Athenians could not be everywhere at once. As the morning wore on, Corinthians beyond the reach of Athenian rams were able to engage and board Corcyraean triremes. Finding that their maneuvers no longer had any effect, the Athenian triremes were drawn one by one into actual contact. They made
no more feints but now engaged in open attacks and hand-to-hand fighting. In the fury of battle, they forgot the Assembly’s orders and the dictates of prudence. As if the two cities were already at war, the ships from Athens began to ram those of Corinth.

  Had the Corcyraean left wing maintained order and turned their attack on the Corinthians, they might have saved the day. By now they were far away, however, chasing their prizes. Worse, it soon became clear that the Athenians had waited until too late to help the right wing. All moral and strategic advantage lost, the Athenians had to break off their attacks and join the fleeing Corcyraeans in the dash to shore and safety. From there they watched helplessly as the Corinthians rowed back and forth among the wreckage, spearing most of the men struggling in the water or clinging to floating timbers. Only when the enemy had finished this killing did they take in tow the abandoned ships, pick up their own dead, and row away to a cove on the mainland, beyond the Sybota Islands.

  It was now afternoon. The crews had been at the oars since before dawn, and the struggle on the decks had exhausted the fighting men. The Corcyraeans on the right wing had lost most of their triremes, and even with the return of the renegade left wing they were no match now for the enemy. So it was with consternation that they saw movement on the opposite shore. The Corinthians were putting out again, rowing up the channel to attack a second time. Evidently they meant to finish the job that the morning’s battle had begun: the complete destruction of Corcyraean naval power and the extinguishing of Athenian efforts to avoid all-out war. Doggedly the Corcyraeans and their Athenian allies, observers no longer, manned their ships once again and rowed out to face their attackers.