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

by John R. Hale

  An important ancient source on the question of slaves in the navy is Xenophon the Orator (Pseudo-Xenophon or the “Old Oligarch”) whose Constitution of the Athenians has been quoted in this chapter to show Athenian attitudes toward and treatment of slaves. Xenophon the Orator noted that slaves learned to row when they accompanied their masters to sea, and that they earned bonus money for themselves when their masters hired them out to the navy. Whether they worked in the Navy Yard or on board the triremes is not specified. I follow Lionel Casson, John Morrison, and other scholars in holding that in Athens slaves did not row on warships except in exceptional cases such as the battle of the Arginusae Islands (and if these men were freed before the battle, then slaves did not row there either). Other scholars believe that slaves routinely rowed on Athenian warships and also served as petty officers: see Borimir Jordan, The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period, and Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians.

  Topography helps explain the Athenian disaster at Notium and the Athenian victory at the Arginusae Islands, though uncertainties about the layout of ancient Mytilene on Lesbos still leave us in the dark about the exact location of its inner and outer harbors, and how Conon moved his triremes from one to the other. With regard to Notium, lying west of Ephesus with a view south to Mount Mycale and the island of Samos, the ancient town lay on a high promontory that blocked off the view toward Ephesus for anyone on the beach below. Thus the Athenian trierarchs could see nothing of Lysander’s sudden attack on the squadron of the rash steersman Antiochus. The promontory would have continued to screen the approach of Lysander’s fleet until the last minute, resulting in the scramble of Athenian launch ings from the beach at Notium and the ultimate victory of the Spartans.

  Visiting the Arginusae Islands in 2006, I told the fisherman who kindly ferried me out to the archipelago from the coastal village of Bademli that I only wanted to see the two big islands. He insisted that we visit a third island, one that is omitted from many modern maps. It lay north of the outer Arginusae, surmounted by a crumbling chapel and surrounded by reefs and flocks of cormorants. Clearly in antiquity this had been an island of considerable size. The half mile of sea between it and the northern tip of the outer Arginusae was great enough to accommodate the Athenian right wing, which would then have been protected on its south flank by the reefs of the big island, and on its north and most exposed flank by the islet. The presence of this islet also explains why Xenophon described the opposite or south wing of the Athenian formation as being “out to sea,” since there was no islet in that direction to protect the outermost triremes (Xenophon, Hellenica, 1.6.29). It also gives more point to Diodorus’ statement that Thrasyllus “embraced” or symperiélabe the Arginusae Islands in his formation (Diodorus Siculus, 13.98.4). The eastern island lies too far away to have been incorporated in the Athenian battle line; it must be the northern islet that justified Diodorus in referring to islands in the plural.

  Chapter 16. Rowing to Hades [405-399 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 233: Sophocles, Antigone, lines 951-54, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Classics, 1982.

  Historical narrative: Thucydides, 5.26 (foretelling the end of the Peloponnesian War after twenty-seven years of fighting); Xenophon, Hellenica, book 2; Diodorus Siculus, 13.103.4-14.33.6; Nepos, Life of Alcibiades, Life of Lysander, and Life of Thrasybulus; Plutarch, Life of Alcibiades and Life of Lysander; Polyaenus, Stratagems, 1.45 (Lysander). Athenian maritime concerns in the spring of 405 B.C.: Aristophanes’ comedy Frogs. The Spartan admiral Lysander believes in fooling boys with knucklebones and men with oaths: Plutarch, Life of Lysander, 8. Athenian generals at Aegospotami dismiss Alcibiades from their camp: Xenophon, Hellenica, 2.1, translation by Rex Warner (as is the following). The arrival of the Paralos at the Piraeus with news of the disaster at Aegospotami: quote from Xenophon, Hellenica, 2.2. The delegate from Phocis changes the mood of the conference in 404 B.C. by singing a chorus from Euripides’ Electra: Plutarch, Life of Lysander, 15. The philosopher Socrates describes the deuteros plous or second voyaging that altered the course of his career: Plato, Phaedo 99D and Statesman 300B. Trial, imprisonment, and death of Socrates: Plato, Apology and Phaedo; Xenophon, Apology; and Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, book 2, “Life of Socrates.”

  The reconstruction of the battle of Aegospotami that is presented in this book differs from previous interpretations. It is based on surveys of the Gallipoli peninsula that I conducted in 2006 with Muharrem Zeybek. Ancient sources imply that Aegospotami lay across the Hellespont from the city of Lampsacus, headquarters of the Spartan fleet; that is, downstream from the port town of Gelibolu on the European shore. Based on that evidence, most modern historians have been forced to conclude that the battle of Aegospotami was decided by nothing more than Athenian folly and Spartan opportunism. Locating Aegospotami directly across from Lampsacus also makes nonsense of many details of action that are reported in the accounts of Xenophon, Diodorus, and Plutarch.

  Standing on a rooftop in modern Lapseki on the site of ancient Lampsacus, it is possible to count the windows on buildings on the opposite shore using nothing more than the naked eye: there would have been no need for Lysander to send a scout ship to spy on the Athenians, let alone two or three (Plutarch, Life of Lysander, 10). The Hellespont may have been even narrower in antiquity, as it appears from the indentation on the European shore with its eroding cliffs that the current is cutting steadily into the northern bank. There are no long sandy beaches along this coast such as the Athenian generals would have required for their large fleet of triremes. Indeed, a rapidly flowing stream tends to deposit sand only at bends and corners, not along straightaways. On the shore opposite Lampsacus, near the traditionally accepted site of Aegospotami, I encountered a gang of diligent workers armed with shovels, who were attempting to enhance the value of their vacation homes by creating an artificial sandy beach where nature had failed to provide one. They were using a concrete embankment as a retaining wall for their efforts.

  Four additional questions arise if Aegospotami is placed within the channel of the Hellespont. First, why were the Athenians short of supplies? They were closer to Sestos than Lysander and should have been able to set up a ferry service to bring food from the granaries there.

  Second, how could Alcibiades have seen the Athenian camp from his fortress at Pactye? Xenophon, who rowed past the site of the great battle when homeward bound with the Ten Thousand in 399 B.C., states that Aegospotami was visible from Pactye, which lay on the isthmus of the Gallipoli peninsula (Xenophon, Hellenica, 2.1.25). Yet I found during a visit to Pactye that the inner reaches of the Hellespont were screened from view by the high ground inland from Gelibolu.

  Third, how could Lysander have expected under any circumstances to take the Athenians by surprise? If Aegospotami lay directly across from Lampsacus, Lysander’s movements would have been as easily visible to the Athenians as theirs were to him.

  Fourth, how can we explain Conon’s stop at the promontory of Abarnis if he started from a point farther downstream on the Hellespont? He was trying desperately to escape to the open sea, but would have had to row upstream toward Spartan-held Lampsacus to collect Lysander’s cruising sails according to the traditional reconstruction of the battle.

  The solution to these problems seemed apparent to me following a survey of the coastline between Pactye on the Sea of Marmara and the middle reaches of the Hellespont. North of modern Gelibolu stretches a sandy beach over a mile in length, cut by two small streams. This is the only beach on the European side long enough to accommodate the 180 Athenian triremes, and it is backed by a plain ideal for a camp. The beach is clearly visible from the site of Alcibiades’ fortress, but is hidden from Lampsacus by a turn of the coastline and by a headland. Beyond the headland, and closer to Gelibolu, is a smaller sandy beach.

  The topographical setting has led me to believe that the long beach was Aegospotami, taking its name from the two streams that empty into the
Sea of Marmara midway along the strand. Lysander would indeed have needed two or three scout ships to see around the corner: one out in the Sea of Marmara with an oblique view of the beach and the plain behind it; the other one or two triremes would have been posted at the mouth of the Hellespont within sight of Lampsacus. From that position they could relay to Lysander the message flashed from the polished bronze shield on the leading scout ship.

  Moreover, we can now understand the predicament of the Athenian generals in choosing a place for their camp. By beaching their ships at Aegospotami on the Sea of Marmara they could prevent Lysander from cruising eastward and taking Byzantium (which he in fact did immediately after his victory). At the same time, the Spartan fleet at Lampsacus now lay on the sea route between the Athenian camp and the food supplies at Sestos, forcing the men to desert the ships and go overland in search of provisions.

  Let us now try to explain some of the crucial points in the battle. Once Lysander had decided to attack, he had to count on the possibility of fighting a naval battle. Accordingly, he landed at the low promontory of Abarnis near Lampsacus to unload his heavy cruising sails (and presumably masts as well). He cannot have placed them there earlier, or the Athenians would have seen them from their ships during their daily row between Aegospotami and Lampsacus.

  From Abarnis, Lysander could then cross to a landing place on the European side that was still screened from the view of the Athenians at Aegospotami, namely the short beach south of the headland. I take this to be the maneuver lying behind Plutarch’s otherwise inexplicable statement that as Lysander’s ships attacked the Athenian camp, the Spartan land forces ran along the seacoast to capture a headland (Plutarch, Life of Lysander, 11). Lysander was showing that infinite capacity for taking pains that is the mark of a genius. Not only had he prepared for a naval battle, but he had also ensured that the Spartans would establish a beachhead near the Athenian camp even if his direct assault on Aegospotami from the sea failed.

  In the event, however, there was no naval battle, and Lysander’s assault did not fail. Only a few Athenian ships escaped, including the Paralos and Conon’s little squadron. Plutarch’s account of the battle makes it clear that Lysander was able to remain hidden from view until he was so close to the beach that the splashing oars of his ships were heard by the Athenians before they were seen. Once Conon had reached open water beyond the chaos on shore, his escape route to the Aegean would take him within sight of the Abarnis promontory, and provide him with an unexpected opportunity to supply his ships with cruising sails for the long journey ahead.

  Can we explain the ancient statements implying that the beach of Aegospotami lay within the Hellespont? The most explicit ancient testimony about the location of Aegospotami comes from Xenophon and Strabo. The latter was an Asiatic Greek from a town south of the Black Sea who wrote a geography of the Roman world in the late first century B.C. at the time of the emperor Augustus. Strabo (7.331, fragment 55) noted that on a voyage up the Hellespont one would pass the ruins of Aegospotami before reaching the city of Kallipolis (modern Gelibolu) at the entrance to the Sea of Marmara. What are we to make of this testimony?

  At the time of the battle in 405 B.C. there was no town at Aegospotami but only an open beach. I believe that the polis of Aegospotami was established by the Spartans in the years immediately following Lysander’s great victory, much as Octavian (the future Augustus) established the city of Nicopolis in western Greece to commemorate his defeat of the fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B.C. Aegospotami minted coins bearing the image of a goat, a pun on “Goat Rivers,” but also the head of Demeter, indicating cultivation of grain. If the city was built inland, on the high ground to the north of the Hellespont, then its ruins could have been a landmark inside the channel even if the beach that inspired its name lay to the east, at the extreme end of the Sea of Marmara.

  As for our other ancient source, Xenophon approached the battle site from the east, voyaging toward the mouth of the Hellespont across the Sea of Marmara in 399 B.C., as noted above. Seen from this direction, rather than from the bird’s-eye vantage point of modern maps, one could indeed describe the long beach at Aegospotami as lying across from Lampsacus, and then go on (as Xenophon does) to state the width of the Hellespont at this point.

  I believe that the details given by ancient historians about the action at Aegospotami outweigh the geographical testimony. Their accounts of Alcibiades’ view of the beach, of the Athenian inability to get supplies from Sestos, and of Lysander’s plan of attack all make it likely that ancient Aegospotami was the beach north of modern Gelibolu. It seems, however, that only the discovery of the meteorite or asteroid that is said to have fallen at Aegospotami in 468-467 B.C. (see Plutarch, Life of Lysander, 12, and the chronicle on the Parian Marble) will settle the question for good. Since it appears that the two streams have heavily sedimented the plain, the stone that fell from the sky may lie far below the modern surface.

  Epigraph for Part Five, page 247: Pericles’ speech to the Athenians in 430 B.C., in Thucydides, 2.64, translated by Rex Warner.

  Chapter 17. Passing the Torch [397-371 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 249: Euripides, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, lines 114-17.

  Historical narrative of the wars waged against the Spartans by the Persians and the Greeks, including the Athenians: Xenophon, Hellenica, books 3-6; Isocrates, Panegyricus and other orations; fragments on papyrus of the Oxyrhynchus historian or “P”; Diodorus Siculus, books 14 and 15; Nepos, Life of Conon, Life of Thrasybulus, Life of Iphicrates, Life of Chabrias, Life of Timotheus, and Life of Phocion; Plutarch, Life of Phocion; Polyaenus, Stratagems, 1.48 (Conon), 3.9 (Iphicrates), 3.10 (Timotheus, including battle of Alyzia), and 3.11 (Chabrias).

  Conon urges Pharnabazos to injure the Spartans by sending ships and money to Athens in 493 B.C.: Xenophon, Hellenica, 4.8.9, translation by Rex Warner. The idea that walls should “slumber in the bosom of the earth”: Plato, Laws, 778, adapted from the translation by Benjamin Jowett. Resurrection of Athenian naval power: Jack Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance?; and Robin Seager, “The King’s Peace and the Second Athenian Confederacy,” in The Cambridge Ancient History Volume VI: The Fourth Century B.C., ed. D. M. Lewis. Rebuilding the Long Walls, new construction in the Piraeus, and the monument to Themistocles: David H. Conwell, Connecting a City to the Sea; Robert Garland, The Piraeus from the Fifth to the First Centuries B.C.; and George A. Steinhauer, Piraeus: Centre of Shipping and Culture. Reconstruction of the shipsheds in the Navy Yard at Zea Harbor, including double shipsheds to house pairs of triremes end to end: Bjørn Lovén et al., “The Zea Harbour Project.” The deforestation of Attica in the fourth century B.C.: Plato, Critias, 111, adapted from Jowett’s translation.

  In the Life of Themistocles by Plutarch, Themistocles’ tomb quotation is attributed to Plato the comic poet, not the philosopher. Texts of King’s Peace of 386 B.C. and Callistratus’ speech of 371 B.C.: Xenophon, Hellenica, 5.1.31 and 6.3.14, translations by Rex Warner. Timotheus, the lobsters and the goddess Tyche or Fortune in the world’s first known political cartoon: Aelian, Historical Miscellany, 13.43. Timotheus rebukes his superstitious steersman at Alyzia in 375 B.C.: Polyaenus, Stratagems, 3.10.2., adapted from the translation by E. Wheeler and P. Krentz. Iphicrates’ quote, “Consider what I was, and what I now am”: Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.9, 1367B. Praise for Iphicrates’ training cruise around the Peloponnese in 373 B.C.: Xenophon, Hellenica, 6.2.7-8. Ancient sources for the careers of Cephisodotus and Praxiteles as well as the marriage that linked the families of Timotheus and Iphicrates can be found in John K. Davies’ Athenian Propertied Families, 600-300 B.C.

  Chapter 18. Triremes of Atlantis [370-354 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 269: Plato, Timaeus, 25D.

  Historical sources for the rise of Athenian maritime imperialism and the War with the Allies or “Social War”: Diodorus Siculus, book 16, chapters 7, 21, and 22; also Nepos, Life of Chabrias, Life of Timotheus,
and Life of Iphicrates; and Plutarch, Life of Phocion. Responses to the War with the Allies and to the Athenian financial crisis in the decade of the 350s: Isocrates, “On the Peace,” 16, and Xenophon, “Poroi” (“Revenues”). For Periander’s reform of the trierarchy see Vincent Gabrielsen, Financing the Athenian Fleet.

  Plato’s career, writings, and school at the Academy: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, book 3, “Life of Plato.” Plato’s maritime metaphors: excerpts from Plato’s dialogues Republic, Critias, Laws, and Statesman. Athenian tribute payments to King Minos of Crete: Plato, Laws, 706, translation by T. J. Saunders. Negative assessment of Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles: Plato, Gorgias, 518-19. Cosmic beam of light is like the girding cables of a trireme: Plato, Republic, 616, translation by Paul Shorey. Gods govern humans as steersmen guide ships: Plato, Critias, 109. Laying down the keel of a human soul: Plato, Laws, 803, translation by Saunders. Allegory of the true steersman: Plato, Republic, 488. The Atlantis myth: Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias. The Atlantis myth as an allegory of maritime and imperial powers, especially Athens: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato’s Myth; and Vidal-Naquet’s “Athens and Atlantis: Structure and Meaning of a Platonic Myth,” in his collection of articles titled The Black Hunter.

  Chapter 19. The Voice of the Navy [354-339 B.C.]

  Epigraph, page 280: Euripides, Andromache, lines 479-82, translated by John Davie, Penguin Classics, 1998.