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

by John R. Hale

  A high ridge hid Timotheus’ camp at Alyzia from Spartan scouts, but from its crest the Athenians had a clear view of the Spartans. With fifty-five triremes the enemy fleet was already almost a match for the Athenians, and Timotheus knew that reinforcements were on their way to the Spartans: ten triremes convoying a fleet of Italian grain freighters, and half a dozen more from the Ambracians in the Gulf of Arta. These western Greeks had been bitter enemies of the Athenians since the early campaigns of Phormio. Timotheus decided to attack while he still held the advantage in numbers.

  The battle coincided with the Athenian religious holiday known as the Skira, held on the twelfth of the early-summer month of Skirophorion. Garlands for the Skira were traditionally woven of myrtle branches. Mindful of his crews’ morale, Timotheus let them cut myrtle from the surrounding countryside and decorate the triremes with green wreaths. In this way the ships were consecrated to the gods being honored that day in far-off Athens: Athena, Poseidon, and the sun god Helios.

  As the crew boarded Timotheus’ flagship, a man happened to sneeze while coming up the ladder. At the omen, the steersman called a halt to the boarding process. But Timotheus was no Nicias, to let a portent interfere with his plan of campaign. Myrtle wreaths were one thing; calling off a battle because of a sneeze was quite another. “Do you think it a miracle,” he demanded of his superstitious steersman, “that out of so many thousands one man has caught a cold?” The men laughed at the rebuke, and the process of boarding resumed.

  Timotheus first launched only twenty of his triremes, leaving the others behind on shore. As soon as this ridiculously small Athenian squadron rowed into view around the southern tip of the promontory, the entire Spartan fleet eagerly advanced to meet it. The Athenian vanguard had plenty of sea room, but Timotheus did not intend to use it at present for the classic maneuvers of diekplous or periplous. Instead, he instructed his trierarchs and steersmen to break formation and execute any maneuvers they pleased, provided that they kept the Spartans on the attack and stayed out of range of enemy rams and missiles. So the scattered Athenian ships led the Spartans in a lively chase, turning, twisting, or feigning flight, transforming the sea west of Alyzia into a watery dancing floor.

  The sun rose high; the enemy’s oar beats grew sluggish and weak. Seeing that he had worn them out, Timotheus told his trumpeter to sound the retreat. The Athenians raced back toward Alyzia, and the Spartan fleet trailed behind: hot, weary, and thoroughly annoyed. At that moment Timotheus’ forty reserve triremes emerged into view from around the promontory, fresh and ready for anything.

  The result was a foregone conclusion. The Athenians took full advantage of their superior energy and their general’s tactics, and the ramming attack continued until the appearance of the long-awaited Spartan reinforcements. Faced with this fresh threat, Timotheus ordered some of his trierarchs to lasso the hulls of disabled ships and take them in tow. He then arrayed all the others in a vast crescent around them. The convex curve of this half-moon shielded the prizes, and its backward-reaching horns prevented attacks from the flanks. As soon as the tow ships were under way, the rest retreated with their rams continually pointed toward the frustrated Spartans, backing water all the way to their haven at Alyzia. Though the Spartans now held the advantage in numbers, Timotheus’ novel mode of retreat prevented them from renewing the battle or claiming any prizes.

  It would be left to another Athenian general, Iphicrates, to aim the final blow at Spartan naval power. Unlike his colleagues, Iphicrates grew up in poverty, the son of a shoemaker. At the age of only twenty his remarkable qualities as a soldier earned him a command under Conon at Cnidus. Like Chabrias, Iphicrates introduced innovations into Athenian warfare. He championed the use of lightly armored, mobile troops known as peltasts (so called for the small rimless leather shields or peltai that they carried) rather than the hoplites who had served Athens with such mixed results during the century since the battle of Marathon.

  He was also a pioneer in coordinating fleets and armies in joint attacks and stratagems. During his first expedition to the Hellespont he devised a “Trojan Horse” ploy. First, Iphicrates’ triremes departed ostentatiously from their station, luring overconfident Spartan hoplites into an unguarded position; then Iphicrates’ peltasts, who had been lying concealed on high ground, ambushed the enemy with deadly effect.

  On another occasion Iphicrates borrowed not from Homer’s epic but from Aesop’s fable of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Faced with the problem of telling friends from foes among the islanders of Chios, Iphicrates secretly put some of his Athenian troops on shore. He then sent his triremes into the harbor decorated with Spartan insignia, and with the trierarchs disguised as Spartan officers. The sight of these supposed allies brought all the local Spartan sympathizers running down to the docks. Now that they had obligingly revealed their true loyalties and assembled without arms, Iphicrates had them rounded up and arrested.

  Athens scarcely provided a wide enough stage for this brilliant and daring tactician. At times Iphicrates could be found, not on the deck of an Athenian flagship, but serving as a soldier of fortune in Asia or the northern Aegean. His personal services to the royal house of Macedon led to Iphicrates’ being formally adopted as a son by the Macedonian king. Farther east in Thrace, Iphicrates’ victories carried him to such dizzying heights that he was able to marry the sister of a Thracian king, thus following in the foot-steps of the legendary Miltiades.

  Iphicrates named his son Menestheus after an ancient king of Athens, celebrated in Homer’s Iliad as the monarch who led fifty Athenian ships to Troy. The original Menestheus was singled out in Homer’s epic verses as the Greek leader most skilled at ordering and marshaling troops in battle—a skill that Iphicrates valued highly. A born leader himself, Iphicrates held the commander to be the most important element in warfare. “When other parts are lost,” he reminded his listeners, “the army may be lame and disabled. But when the general is lost, the entire army is useless.” Every poor citizen could see in Iphicrates the fulfillment of the Athenian democratic dream, a cobbler’s son who rose through his own efforts to fame and fortune. Iphicrates never let the world forget his humble origins. “Consider what I was,” he would say, “and what I now am.”

  Now one of the city’s most honored generals, Iphicrates decided that the fleet allocated to his upcoming western cruise was inadequate. He demanded more ships, as if he ruled the Assembly rather than the other way around. Meekly the Assembly complied. Timotheus in the same position had been too proud or too principled to beg for sufficient forces. Iphicrates ultimately assembled a fleet of seventy that included the state triremes Paralos and Salaminia and even guard ships from the coastal patrols. He also cracked down on his trierarchs, making them take responsibility for recruiting their own crews.

  His destination was Corcyra, where a Spartan fleet and army were besieging the democratic islanders. Iphicrates was determined to reach Corcyra in record time, and he meant to bring his crews to a perfect pitch of discipline and fitness while doing so. He left all the mainsails behind in the Piraeus, as if he intended to meet the enemy in battle on the first day of the expedition and every day thereafter. Without cruising sails, the twelve thousand oarsmen in the fleet were compelled to row throughout the voyage, with only occasional help from the small boat sails when the winds were favorable.

  As they rowed, Iphicrates drilled the helmsmen and crews in recognizing signals and in executing battle maneuvers, turning from line ahead formation to line abreast, without ever ceasing the relentless forward motion. He also made the daily landings for meals into occasions for rowing races, starting far out at sea and ending on the beach, where the winners were first in line for food and drink. While the fleet was on shore, the small masts were stepped so sentries could climb to their tops and watch for approaching enemies. On some fine afternoons Iphicrates put to sea again after dinner. The crews then rowed in shifts, each taking turns to sleep through the hours of evening.

 
Word of this extraordinary cruise reached the Athenian exile Xenophon, now living on a farm near Olympia and collecting material for a history that would continue the unfinished work of Thucydides. Xenophon gave high praise to Iphicrates for this tactical use of a cruise into the battle zone. “I know, of course, that when people are expecting to fight a naval action, all these tactical exercises and all this training are quite usual. But what I admire in the conduct of Iphicrates is this: when he had to arrive quickly in an area where he expected to engage the enemy, he found a way by which his men would be none the worse trained tactically because of having to make the voyage, and the voyage would be none the slower because of the training given to the men.”

  Inevitably the rumor of Iphicrates’ approach reached Corcyra. The Spartans on the island were so alarmed that they broke off the siege and slipped away to a safe harbor nearer home. With them went their sixty triremes. Thanks to Iphicrates’ show of strength and readiness, the Athenians won their victory without fighting a battle. A politician named Peitholaus had once called the state trireme Paralos “the People’s Big Stick.” Thanks to Iphicrates, the epithet could be applied with justice to the entire Athenian fleet.

  Only one mopping-up operation remained. Ten Syracusan triremes were on their way to Corcyra from Sicily. Iphicrates learned that the latecomers expected to finish their long crossing at night. The Syracusans would light a beacon on an offshore islet as they approached their destination. If they saw an answering signal fire on the northern cape of Corcyra, the Syracusans would know that the Spartans still controlled the island and would press forward the next morning to reinforce their old allies.

  Iphicrates led twenty triremes to the northern tip of the island and waited through the night. Out at sea in the black night a beacon flared. Lighting a blaze in answer, Iphicrates steered his squadron across the dark water toward the beacon of the ignorant enemy. At first light he reached the islet—and swooped down on the unsuspecting Sicilians, capturing ships and crews together. In his mortification, the Syracusan commander committed suicide. Although neither Iphicrates nor anyone else could know it at the time, this remote and minor exploit was to be the last naval action in the long, long war. But one last disaster still awaited the Spartan fleet.

  A year after Iphicrates made his cruise to Corcyra, ten Spartan triremes lay at Helike, a city on the southern coast of the Corinthian Gulf. Their commander was the same Pollis whom Chabrias and Phocion had defeated at Naxos three years before. While the Spartan ships were in the harbor at Helike, a strange phenomenon was observed. For days, an exodus of snakes, mice, and other small animals—even beetles—streamed out of the city, making for higher ground.

  On the fifth night a violent earthquake shook the gulf. Some hours later, as the survivors were trying to save themselves and their families, the sea rose in an immense wave and swept over the site, destroying everything. By morning Helike had disappeared, along with Pollis and the ten Spartan ships. Only a shallow lagoon remained. Local ferrymen claimed that for years afterward they had to steer clear of a submerged bronze statue of Poseidon. The Earthshaker still stood erect in his ancient sanctuary, menacing watercraft with his trident at the place where he had blotted out the last vestige of the Spartan navy.

  The string of naval defeats and the great wave that swallowed up the triremes at Helike left the Spartans bewildered and demoralized. The following summer Athenian envoys arrived in Sparta with a proposal of peace. A popular leader named Callistratus accompanied the embassy. Callistratus had been so worn out during his recent trierarchy on board the Lampra (“Radiant”) that he had made an unprecedented deal with the general in command of the fleet. If Iphicrates would only let him go home, Callistratus swore either to raise new funds for the navy or to negotiate a peace. He kept his word.

  From Callistratus, the Spartans heard the kind of straight talk that they could respect. “All the cities of Greece are divided among those who are on our side and those who are on yours, and in each individual city there is a pro-Spartan party and a pro-Athenian party. Now if you and we became friends, would there be any quarter from which either of us could reasonably expect trouble? Certainly, if you were with us, no one would be powerful enough to do us any harm on land; and with us on your side, no one could hurt you by sea.”

  The Spartans agreed to the terms, which were in reality nothing more than a reaffirmation of the King’s Peace of fifteen years before, minus the threats of Artaxerxes. The events of the following days, however, linked this peace to one of the great turning points of Greek history. Spartan supremacy on land was about to be shattered. In his speech Callistratus had failed to mention the one power that could now challenge the Spartan hoplite phalanx: Thebes. The peace accord with Athens could not help Sparta against this new rival. When the two great armies met near the town of Leuctra, the Theban general Epaminondas launched an attack that resembled, in Xenophon’s words, “the ram of a trireme.”

  By the end of the battle, the myth of Spartan invincibility was exploded. Already stripped of its thalassocracy, Sparta lost at Leuctra its ancient claim to be the supreme moral and military leader of Greece. To ensure that Sparta would never revive, the Thebans liberated the Spartan fiefdom of Messenia, the rich land of the southwestern Peloponnese, and called its people home. For the first time in centuries Messenia was again an independent state; the exile of the Messenians at Naupactus was finally over.

  The Peloponnesian War had lasted twenty-seven years and settled nothing. The Spartan War, fought by generals from Conon to Iphicrates, had also lasted for a full generation, and it changed Greece forever. Taking the long view, Athenians could now see that they had ultimately triumphed over the Spartans in a contest that began with the battle of Tanagra in the days of the Delian League and lasted more than eighty-five years. The struggle had weakened both cities, but in the end Athenian democracy, leadership, and naval tradition had prevailed.

  The return of Athenian sea power breathed new life into the city’s Golden Age. Chabrias and Phocion regularly attended Plato’s lectures at the Academy; Timotheus could be found on the other side of the city studying rhetoric with Isocrates at the Lyceum. Phocion’s brother-in-law, a sculptor named Cephisodotus, created a monument in the Agora to honor the goddess Eirene (“Peace”), whom he depicted as a happy mother holding a baby named Plutus (“Wealth”). A sculptor named Praxiteles was the brightest light in Athens’ artistic renaissance. Praxiteles raised Athenian sculpture to new heights with his nude Aphrodite. From her temple at Cnidus in Asia Minor, Praxiteles’ famous marble goddess looked out over the bay where Conon had struck the first blow against Spartan hegemony at sea.

  The rebirth of Athens reached a high point eight years after the peace with Sparta, on a night enlivened by torchlit processions and the music of pipes and lyres. Timotheus’ daughter was marrying Menestheus, the son of Iphicrates. An ornate wedding wagon carried the young couple from the door of the bride’s house, which Timotheus had decked with laurel and olive branches. Friends sang the marriage hymn as the wagon rolled through the streets. Iphicrates, crowned with myrtle, met them at his door. Beside him stood his wife, the northern princess whose own wedding had taken place in a Thracian royal hall. Now she held aloft a flaming torch to welcome the bride. In a shower of nuts and dried fruit Timotheus’ daughter descended from the wagon, ate the ceremonial quince, and entered the home of her new family. Her children would unite the bloodlines of Conon and Timotheus with Iphicrates, three of the city’s greatest naval heroes. Their victories had brought to pass the seemingly impossible: Athens was alight again with a final flaring up of its ancient glory.

  CHAPTER 18

  Triremes of Atlantis [370-354 B.C.]

  In one day and night of terror all your fighting men were swallowed up by the earth, just as the island of Atlantis was swallowed up by the sea and disappeared.

  —Plato

  WHEN PEOPLE OF LATER AGES LOOKED BACK AT THE REVIVAL of Athens’ Golden Age, the figure of Plato domi
nated the scene. The philosopher possessed the most towering intellect that the city, or perhaps any city, ever produced. Like Thucydides before him, Plato saw the quest for sea rule as the defining issue of Athenian politics and history. In time he became the navy’s most articulate and vehement opponent, though only in his writings, not in the Assembly.

  Plato liked to trace things back to their beginnings, but his revisionist view of Athenian history differed widely from the version recited by the jingoistic demagogues. Theseus’ heroic action in ending the tribute payments to Minos took a darker turn in Plato’s vision: “It would have been better for them to lose seven youths over and over again rather than get into bad habits by forming themselves into a navy.” He also disputed the popular belief that Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles had been benefactors of the people. “Yes, they say these men made our city great. They never realize that it is now swollen and infected because of these statesmen of former days, who paid no heed to discipline and justice. Instead, they filled our city with harbors and navy yards and walls and tribute and such-like trash.”