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

by John R. Hale

  Democracy based on sea power: Aristotle, Politics, 4.4 and 5.4, translation by T. A. Sinclair. Peitholaus and the “People’s Big Stick”: Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.10, translation by G. C. Armstrong. The claim of Socrates to be a “citizen of the world”: Plutarch, On Exile, 600F. “O Athens, queen of cities! How fair your Navy Yard!”: anonymous fragment of a lost Athenian comedy, R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci VIII, Berlin, 1995, fragment 155.

  Delphic oracle predicting that Athens would ride the waves of the sea: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles, 24.

  Chapter 1. One Man, One Vision [483 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 3: Aristophanes, Wasps, lines 28-30.

  Themistocles proposes to use silver from Laurium to build a fleet: Herodotus, 7.144; Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 22.7. Themistocles starts to fortify the Piraeus during his archonship of 493-492 B.C. : Thucydides, 1.93. Details of Themistocles’ family, character, and career: Nepos, Life of Themistocles; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles. Plutarch is also the source for his father Neocles’ observation about the abandoned triremes, and for Themistocles’ own signature motto on “how to make a small city great.” In his Life of Cimon Plutarch explains that the source of the latter quotation was Ion of Chios, who heard it at a symposium in Athens within the lifetime of Themistocles. Modern studies of Themistocles: Frank J. Frost, Plutarch’s Themistocles: A Historical Commentary; Robert J. Lenardon, The Saga of Themistocles.

  Poetical description of mêtis: Homer, Iliad, 23.358-62. Modern analysis of mêtis: Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society.

  Athenian Assembly procedures: David Stockton, The Classical Athenian Democracy. Rules for speakers: Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 35. Archaeology of the Assembly’s meeting place on the Pnyx: Björn Forsén and Greg Stanton, eds., The Pnyx in the History of Athens. The four classes of Athenian citizens: C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. Aristides opposes Themistocles’ navy bill and is subsequently ostracized: Nepos, Life of Aristides; Plutarch, Life of Aristides. The Athenian ten-drachma coins struck in the early fifth century, possibly for the annual dole of silver from Laurium, described and illustrated by C. Seltman in Athens, Its History and Coinage Before the Persian Invasion. On the question of what ten drachmas would buy in ancient Athens, see William T. Loomis, Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens.

  Chapter 2. Building the Fleet [483-481 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 15: Homer, Odyssey, 8.34-35.

  Fifty Athenian ships participate in the Trojan War: Homer, Iliad, 2.573-759 (the “Catalog of Ships”). Early naval history of Greece, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean: Herodotus, books 1 and 3; Thucydides, 1.2-17. Both these ancient historians take it for granted that triremes were already in use during the age of Greek exploration and colonization starting in the eighth century B.C., though triremes were not used in naval battles until the late sixth century B.C.

  Themistocles decides to build fast triremes without overall decks: Thucydides, 1.14. Wood for Athenian fleets and building projects: Russell Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World. (An invaluable compendium of ancient evidence, but Meiggs’s view that the Athenians in 483 B.C. procured wood from southern Italy rather than using their homegrown timber is hard to credit.) Ships sewn with linen: Rosalba Panvini, The Archaic Greek Ship at Gela; M. E. Polzer, “An Archaic Laced Hull in the Aegean: The 2003 Excavation and Study of the Pabuç Burnu Ship Remains.” Manufacturing a ram for an ancient warship: Asaf Oron, “The Athlit Ram Bronze Casting Reconsidered.” Construction of the ship Olympias in 1985-86: Frank Welsh, Building the Trireme, for comparisons.

  Exactly how a Greek trireme was designed and rowed is one of the longest-standing controversies in the entire field of classical studies. For the author’s interpretation of the evidence see the article by John R. Hale, “The Lost Technology of Ancient Greek Rowing.”

  Chapter 3. The Wooden Wall [481-480 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 29: Xenophanes, fragment 17.

  Xerxes’ expedition and the Greek resistance up to midsummer 480 B.C. : Herodotus, book 7, which includes the text of the “Wooden Wall” oracle; Diodorus Siculus, book II, chapters 1-5; Nepos, Life of Themistocles; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles. Young Cimon’s example to his fellow horsemen in consenting to pull an oar: Plutarch, Life of Cimon. The Athenians resolve to face the Persian fleet, with or without the Spartans: Thucydides, 1.18 and 1.74.

  The reconstruction of events in early summer 480 B.C. that is presented in this book is based on the inscription known as the “Themistocles Decree.” The inscribed stone was found at Troezen and published by Michael Jameson of the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. Subjects covered by the decree match those that would have been raised by Themistocles during a debate on the interpretation of the “Wooden Wall” oracle as described by Herodotus (7.143), namely trusting in a wooden wall (i.e., the embarkation of all the citizens in the triremes), the oracle’s command to flee from the Persians (hence the plan to evacuate noncombatants from Attica), and the oracle’s naming of Salamis as a critical site in the coming conflict (thus leading to the transfer of the Athenian government to the island of Salamis). Many scholars consider the “Themistocles Decree” to be a literary patchwork created long after the Persian Wars; some dismiss it altogether as an ancient forgery. Its authenticity seems to be supported by the testimony of Thucydides cited above. Given the oblivion into which the Artemisium campaign sank among Athenian orators of the fourth century, it is unlikely that a forger of that period or later would have made Artemisium the focus of a forged “Themistocles Decree.” Opposing views on the question of authenticity are collected in Donald Kagan, Problems in Ancient History: The Ancient Near East and Greece.

  Recent scientific work conducted at the site of the Delphic Oracle: William J. Broad, The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science Behind Its Lost Secrets. A modern study of Xerxes’ expedition: C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece. Persian history and civilization: Lindsay Allen, The Persian Empire.

  Chapter 4. Holding the Pass [Summer, 480 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 43: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles, 8, quoting the poet Pindar, fragment 93.

  Battles between Persians and Greeks at Artemisium and Thermopylae: Herodotus, 8.1 to 8.39 ; Diodorus Siculus, 11.6-11.13; Nepos, Life of Themistocles; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles. Modern study of the campaigns of August 480 B.C.: Andrew Robert Burn, The Persian Wars: The Greeks and the Defence of the West, c. 546-478 B.C. An ancient inscription unearthed in 1883 on the northern coast of Euboea confirmed the identification of Artemisium with the splendid sandy beach at Pevki Bay. The inscription came from a nearby shrine of Artemis, the goddess whose shrine gave the beach its ancient name.

  Chapter 5. Salamis [End of Summer, 480 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 55: Aeschylus, Persians, lines 402-5.

  Principal ancient sources for the battle of Salamis in September, 480 B.C.: Aeschylus, Persians; Herodotus, book 8; Timotheus of Miletus, fragments of a poem on Salamis; Diodorus Siculus, 11.14-11.19; Nepos, Life of Themistocles; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles and Life of Aristides; Polyaenus, Stratagems, 1.30. The contribution of money from wealthy members of the Areopagus to support Athenian citizens: Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 23.

  The tactics and maneuvers that determined the outcome of the battle of Salamis have been a source of controversy since ancient times. The reconstruction presented in this book is based on the early accounts by Aeschylus and Herodotus. The former was a participant and eyewitness; the latter interviewed men who had fought on both the Greek and the Persian sides. The topography of the narrow Salamis channel, even allowing for a rise of two to three meters in sea level since antiquity, seems to support their versions of the battle.

  Later writers added details unrecorded by Aeschylus and Herodotus and in some cases flatly contradicted the early accounts. The fragments of Timotheus’ poem on Salamis, which was probably w
ritten at least eighty years after the battle, include a reference to burning ships. This use of fire in a naval battle appears to be an anachronism inspired by the Syracusan use of fire ships against the Athenian fleet in 413 B.C., much closer to Timotheus’ own time.

  The version of the battle presented by Diodorus Siculus probably derives from the fourth-century B.C. historian Ephorus of Cyme. This version makes Salamis mirror the battle of Thermopylae. The Salamis strait plays the role of the narrow pass that Leonidas defended, and two hundred Egyptian triremes (not mentioned by Aeschylus or Herodotus) repeat the encircling maneuver of Xerxes’ Immortals at Thermopylae. The main Persian fleet then tries to punch its way through the Greek ships that block the narrows. This time, however, the Greeks have their revenge and win the day.

  It seems preferable to stick with Herodotus’ explicit testimony that the Persian right wing extended westward toward Eleusis and the left wing eastward toward Munychia at the Piraeus. In other words, Xerxes’ commanders backed their long triple line of ships up against the mainland of Attica, where they could count on the support of Persian troops on shore. They then charged across the width of the channel to engage the Greeks along the rocky coast of Salamis.

  Plutarch in his Life of Themistocles seems bent on introducing as many novelties and contradictions of Herodotus as possible. The order of events is shuffled, spectacular human sacrifices are added to the narrative, and the outcome of the battle is determined by the structural design of the opposing triremes: proud and towering on the Persian side, low and unostentatious on the Greek side. Plutarch claims that Themistocles held off his attack until the morning wind caught the high Persian hulls and rendered them unmanageable; the Greek ships remained unaffected. Even in antiquity one commentator observed that Plutarch had stolen this stratagem of “waiting for the wind” from Phormio in his victory over the Peloponnesian kyklos at Patras in 429 B.C. (See the scholion to Aelius Aristides, On the Four, 2.282, referring to Thucydides, 2.83.) Plutarch was certainly wrong to claim that Themistocles launched the Greek attack at Salamis: the admiral in command of the allied fleet was Eurybiades of Sparta. Plutarch’s version appears to owe more to a sense of poetic justice than to genuine traditions that somehow eluded Aeschylus and Herodotus.

  For reconstructions of the battle of Salamis that incorporate material from Diodorus and Plutarch, see John S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships, 900-322 B.C., and Barry Strauss, The Battle of Salamis.

  Epigraph for Part Two, page 75: Pericles’ Funeral Oration of 431 B.C., in Thucydides, 2.37, translation by Rex Warner.

  Chapter 6. A League of Their Own [479-463 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 77: Thucydides, 1.142, translation by Rex Warner.

  The naval battle of Mycale and the Greek assault on Sestos: Herodotus, book 9; Diodorus Siculus, 11.27-11.37. The exact site of the battle at the foot of Mount Mycale is uncertain. Sediment from the Meander River has silted up an extensive area of former coastline, including the spot where the Persians drew their ships onto land. The most important monument to the Greek victory over Xerxes’ forces is the Serpent Column of Plataea. It was originally set up at Delphi but later carried off at Constantine’s orders to adorn his new hippodrome at Constantinople (ancient Byzantium, modern Istanbul). The bronze column can be seen today in the park near Hagia Sophia, and the thirty-one names of the cities and islands that resisted Xerxes are still visible on the lower coils. The island of Tenos was added to the list, to recognize the heroism of the Tenian crew who brought their trireme over to the Greek side on the night before the battle of Salamis.

  Herodotus’ account of the Persian Wars ends with the triumphal return of the Athenian fleet from Sestos in the autumn or early winter of 479 B.C. Thucydides began his account of Athens’ acquisition of maritime supremacy so as to pick up the story where Herodotus left off.

  Themistocles instigates the building of walls at Athens, and Aristides takes the lead in creating a new “Delian League” of the Athenians and their allies: Thucydides, 1.89-93 and 1.94-97; Nepos, Life of Themistocles and Life of Aristides; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles and Life of Aristides; Diodorus Siculus, 11.38-11.47; Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 23-24.

  Cimon leads the Athenian and allied fleet in over a dozen campaigning seasons, from the early 470s to the late 460s, including a great victory over the Persians at the Eurymedon River in about 466 B.C. : Thucydides, 1.97-101; Diodorus Siculus, 11.60- 11.62; Nepos, Life of Cimon; Plutarch, Life of Cimon; Polyaenus, Stratagems, 1.34. Cimon’s stratagem of turning the course of the Strymon River against the walls of Eion is recorded only in Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.8.7. According to Plutarch, the south wall of the Acropolis was built with the proceeds from Cimon’s victory at the Eurymedon River. It is still a spectacular Athenian landmark, best viewed from the esplanade that runs from the theater of Dionysus to the theater of Herodes Atticus.

  Cimon recovers the bones of Theseus from Skyros: Plutarch, Life of Theseus and Life of Cimon; also, William Blake Tyrrell and Frieda S. Brown, Athenian Myths and Institutions. The artist Mikon paints a scene showing Theseus with the sea goddess Amphitrite on the wall of the new temple of Theseus: Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.17.2-3. An Athenian red-figure kylix, now in the Louvre, is painted with the same scene: see Thomas H. Carpenter, Art and Myth in Ancient Greece, figure 244. The triakontor of Theseus in Athenian lore and ritual: Plutarch, Life of Theseus; Plato, Phaedo. The identification of the sacred triakontor with the ship Delias in an ancient lexicon was suggested by Borimir Jordan in The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period.

  Themistocles flees to Persia and is welcomed by the Great King: Thucydides, 1.135-38; Diodorus Siculus, entry for the year 471-470 B.C.; Nepos, Life of Themistocles; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles. Praise of Themistocles’ genius: Thucydides, 1.138.3, translation by Rex Warner.

  Based on the testimony of Plutarch in his Life of Cimon, some modern scholars argue that the Peace of Callias negotiated in 449 B.C. between Athens and Persia was preceded by a similar, short-lived peace also negotiated by Callias immediately following Cimon’s victory at the Eurymedon River in about 466 B.C. For a full review of the evidence see Ernst Badian, From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia.

  Chapter 7. Boundless Ambition [462-446 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 95: Xenophon the Orator, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.2.

  The radical democratic reforms of Ephialtes in 462-461 B.C. and the ostracism of Cimon: Aristotle, Constitution of Athens, 25-26; Diodorus Siculus, entry for the year 460-459 B.C. in 11.77 (as is often the case, Diodorus’ chronology is unreliable); Plutarch, Life of Cimon. Early career of Pericles, including his sponsorship of Aeschylus’ Persians in 472 B.C. and his association with Ephialtes: Plutarch, Life of Pericles. Quote from Aeschylus, Persians, lines 241-42.

  The Athenian and allied expedition to Egypt: Thucydides, 1.104 and 1.109-111; Diodorus Siculus, entries for the years 463-462 to 460-459 B.C. in 11.71-11.77. (Diodorus’ chronology is too early, but he provides more details about the Egyptian expedition than Thucydides. The correct dates should be about 460 or 459 to 454 B.C.) Ancient evidence for the short-lived Athenian control of Dor (or Dorus) on the coast of Palestine, south of Phoenicia, is discussed by Russell Meiggs in The Athenian Empire, at pages 102, 245, and 420-21.

  War in the Saronic Gulf and on the Greek mainland, including the battle of Tanagra and the circumnavigations of the Peloponnese by Tolmides and Pericles (an extended period of conflict also known as the First Peloponnesian War) from about 459 to 446 B.C. : Thucydides, 1.103-8 and 1.111-15; Diodorus Siculus, 11.78- 11.88. Inscription recording Athenian citizens of the Erectheid tribe who fell in a single year in Cyprus, Egypt, Phoenicia, Halieis, Aegina, and Megara: inscription of about 459 B.C. listed as IG II2, 929. The Athenians build Long Walls to join Athens to the coast at Phaleron and the Piraeus: David H. Conwell, Connecting a City to the Sea.

  The Peace of Callias that ended the wars betw
een Athens and Persia: Diodorus Siculus, 12.4. Thucydides does not mention this Peace of Callias, and its existence was challenged even in antiquity. Scholars are still divided on its date, nature, and exact terms.

  Chapter 8. Mariners of the Golden Age [Mid-fifth Century B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 110: Strabo, Geography, 1.1.16.

  Everyday life for Athenian mariners: Robert Flacelière, Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles. A bone of fin whale found in the Athenian Agora: John K. Papadopoulos and Deborah Ruscillo, “A Ketos in Early Athens: An Archaeology of Whales and Sea Monsters in the Greek World,” American Journal of Archaeology. Naval life at sea and ashore: M. Amit, Athens and the Sea: A Study in Athenian Sea-Power. The trireme Paralos and its crew, also the sacred trireme Ammonias and its missions to the oracle of Zeus Ammon in North Africa: Borimir Jordan, The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period. Hazards and ailments of rowers: Hippocratic Corpus—“Epidemics,” 5.32 (the man who fell on the anchor) and “On Fistulas,” 1.102 (cures for fistula of the anus in rowers). “As the Athenian goes into the harbor”: Aristophanes, Babylonians, fragment 87.

  The Piraeus: Robert Garland, The Piraeus from the Fifth to the First Centuries B.C.; an overview of the Piraeus with a focus on inscriptions and religious cults. Hippodamus of Miletus: biography reconstructed by Vanessa B. Gorman in Miletos: The Ornament of Ionia. Excavations that revealed Hippodamus’ street grid and the typical Piraeus house: George A. Steinhauer, “Ancient Piraeus: The City of Themistocles and Hippodamus,” in Piraeus: Centre of Shipping and Culture. The wit who asked for silence during his haircut was King Archelaus of Macedon. Lines describing cargo of Dionysus: Hermippus, Porters, fragment 63. The Phoenician tombstone with the ship-headed god is in the collections of the National Archaeological Museum, Athens.