The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization

by Barry Strauss

  “We are shut in by the enemy in a circle,” Aristides said. He had barely made it past them with his boat and escaped pursuit. Now he advised Themistocles to return inside and deliver the news.

  We need not imagine that Aristides meant the word circle literally. The Greeks used the word kuklos to mean not only circle but, among other things, the vault of heaven, the horizon, the Milky Way, a person’s cheeks, an assembly place, a crowd of people standing around, and the annual cycle of the seasons. By kuklos, Aristides meant only that the Persians had surrounded the Greek fleet at either end of their mooring stations on the eastern coast of Salamis. He did not mean that the Persian fleet had surrounded the entire island. Plutarch makes clear how Aristides’ words are to be understood:

  The barbarian triremes were launched at night, and after they surrounded the strait in a circle, they occupied the islands.

  We might say, then, that the Persians had ringed the straits at either end.

  Apparently Themistocles could hide neither his joy at the information nor his pride in his role as a manipulator. “You should know that the Medes are doing what they are on my initiative,” he told Aristides. And the Greeks would soon be bent to Themistocles’ will as well: he had forced them to fight at Salamis, like it or not. It must have been bliss for Themistocles to contemplate his power, but to lord it before the eyes and under the nose of his archenemy Aristides—that must have been very heaven.

  But ever the strategist, Themistocles limited his crowing to Aristides. Far from taking credit before the other commanders, he told Aristides to deliver the news himself. “If I say it,” Themistocles said, “it will look as if I am lying and they will not believe that the barbarians are really doing these things.”

  Inside the council hall, the Greek generals were “shoving each other with their words,” as Herodotus puts it. They thought that the Persian fleet was safely ashore back at Phaleron, from where they had seen it depart the day before.

  Aristides duly entered the meeting and delivered his news. “The entire camp of the Greeks is shut in by Xerxes’ ships,” he said. He advised them to get ready to defend themselves. And having made his shocking announcement, Aristides left.

  A debate immediately broke out. Most of the commanders were so determined to leave Salamis that they refused to believe Aristides, in spite of his reputation for probity. But the matter was soon settled by another arrival, a man named Panaetius son of Sosimenes. He was the commander of a trireme from the small Aegean island of Tenos, one of the many islands that had sent ships to Xerxes after Artemisium and Thermopylae. Perhaps the Tenians had done so halfheartedly, or perhaps Panaetius had lost his enthusiasm for the Persian cause when the fleet entered the dangerous waters of the straits. In either case, he deserted to the Greeks.

  It was a decisive defection. After Panaetius repeated what Aristides had said, the council conceded. The combined words of the most just man in Athens and of a treacherous islander who was not tarred with the brush of being Athenian had finally worked. The commanders acknowledged the truth of their reports, and so they prepared to fight a naval battle.

  By now, it was three or four in the morning. This was not the usual hour to load seventy thousand men onto triremes and prepare them to row out to battle. But it would have to do.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FROM PHALERON TO SALAMIS

  He sits on the quarterdeck of his trireme, reclining on a purple cushion and protected from the wind by a cloth canopy. The ship slips almost silently past the dark coast. In the distance, across the straits, he can make out the fires of the Greek fleet. Nearby, the sound of the infantrymen, marching westward through Attica, makes it hard for him to hear the ship at all. But when from time to time he does make out the sound of the ship, all he hears is the oars sliding through the water while, at rhythmic intervals, two stones are struck together to keep time, making no more noise than the crunch of footsteps on a layer of shells. They might be a crew of workmen gone to harvest mollusks for the factories of Phoenicia that make purple dye. In fact, they are sailors, the best in the world, and in the predawn darkness of September 25, they are off to win the war. They are the seamen of Sidon, and he is their king, Tetramnestus son of Anysus—conceivably the monarch known in Sidonian texts as Eshmunazar.

  Tetramnestus wore a bronze helmet and a linen breastplate over a linen tunic dyed purple. No doubt he carried a sword. He is likely to have worn gold earrings, rings, and bracelets. On a gold chain around his neck he might have worn a blue glass amulet as protection against evil spirits.

  The Persian fleet was on the move. Seven hundred ships strong, it was rowing, firmly but quietly, toward the straits of Salamis. Its mission was to encircle at either end the places where the enemy had moored. The Greeks were expected to attempt a breakout to the Isthmus that very night. The Persian navy’s job was to stop them. They would shock the Greeks, check their movement, and then destroy that discouraged congeries of chatterboxes in a battle of annihilation—all of this with the help of a substantial squadron of Greek traitors.

  It was a dangerous mission and difficult technically. Not only did the Persian warships have to infiltrate the Greek home waters of the Salamis straits, they had to do so on a dark and cloudy night, unaided by moonlight or stars, and they had to do so without being detected. For centuries the Phoenicians had been the sea dogs of the Mediterranean, and in the fifth century B.C., Sidon—“great Sidon,” “the mother of Canaan,” “the first-born of Canaan,” as it was known—was the first city in Phoenicia. Situated on a promontory between the snow-covered mountains of Lebanon and the limpid blue sea, Sidon exercised the “experience in naval deeds inherited from its ancestors.” Who else but Sidonians could have led such an assignment for Persia?

  Tetramnestus was Xerxes’ favorite king and this was his moment. Before the next day’s sunset, Tetramnestus planned to destroy the Greek navy, thereby handing his master swift and certain victory over all Greece. The king of Sidon was the most valued ally in Xerxes’ navy. Even the image of a warship on the seal stones of the Royal Treasury of Persepolis was copied from a Sidonian coin.

  No need for one of Xerxes’ brothers—the admirals Achaemenes and Ariabignes—to lay down the law to the men of Sidon, or to those of Tyre or Aradus, their Phoenician comrades in arms. It was the untrustworthy Ionians and Egyptians whom the Persians had to keep their eyes on. Not politicians but military professionals, as the Persian commanders Megabazus and Prexaspes arguably were, were seconded to the Phoenician squadron, because the Great King could trust the Phoenicians. And none of the Phoenicians stood higher in Xerxes’ eyes than the men of Sidon. Hadn’t the Persians built a royal park—a paradise—outside Sidon? Hadn’t they funded an enormous temple outside Sidon to the blessed Eshmun, the great healing god of Sidon, revered in all Phoenicia? Hadn’t Sidon finally outstripped its longtime rival, Tyre? For Sidon, Persian rule had been a golden age. Now it was time to repay the Great King.

  Alas, the war was not going as Tetramnestus might have wished. To be sure, it had begun splendidly. Sidon had won the boat race at the Hellespont in May, under the delighted eyes of Xerxes, who watched it from his white marble throne. The next month, at Doriscus in Thrace, His Majesty chose a Sidonian ship from which to review his fleet. The Phoenician contingent of ships was originally three hundred strong. Seated under a golden canopy, the Great King sailed along the single line of ships that was drawn up four hundred feet from shore with the prows turned shoreward and the marines on deck in full battle array. Xerxes asked questions about each ship, and his secretaries recorded every word. What a glorious day for Sidon that had been!

  The Sidonians had next led the fleet through the Mount Athos canal and southward into central Greece. As the lead squadron, they probably hauled their ships onto the shore at Cape Sepias and so survived the storm intact. And then came the embarrassment at Artemisium. No doubt Tetramnestus insisted that his men had done their duty there; the others had lost the battle. If only the Great Ki
ng had left that crowd of landlubbers at home. What good were Cilicians, Lycians, and Pamphylians as sailors? Some of the Cypriots were of Phoenician blood, and so knew the sea, but the wretched Egyptians and Ionians were traitors and not to be trusted.

  Now, Sidon would have a second chance. How fitting for it to come at Salamis, since legend had it that the island was named for a Phoenician trading post and the Phoenican word sh-l-m, “peace.” At Salamis, the Greeks would learn their lesson.

  How easily a Phoenician might discount Greek prowess at sea. The Phoenician city-states were older and longer civilized than the Greek. The Phoenicians were longtime masters of the trireme, but the Athenian trireme navy—the greatest squadron in the Greek fleet—was only three years old. As for Greek success at Artemisium, that might be dismissed as beginner’s luck.

  Tetramnestus might have thought back to the scene, hours ago at Phaleron Bay, when it had begun—this last, decisive mission of the Great King’s fleet. From its precise launching to its bravura sweep up the Saronic Gulf to its soundless parade past an ignorant enemy, the Persian navy had performed brilliantly. And yet, even so, now, as the dawn drew near, Tetramnestus might have found it hard to avoid an undercurrent of doubt.

  The operation had begun at sunset on the day before, September 24. The men returned to Phaleron Bay from their show of force at the entrance to the Salamis straits. The crews came ashore sweating and agitated, men whose destiny had been delayed. We can imagine them climbing down onto the sandy beach, irritated or elated to be back there without having shed blood. Some men feared battle, but others wanted only “to cut the Greeks off in Salamis and make them pay for the battles of Artemisium.”

  After disembarking, the men ate their evening meal. Not only had they rowed a round trip of ten miles to the entrance to the Salamis straits and back, but when they reached the edge of Salamis they had sat at their oars, constantly rowing and backing, as their boats stood smartly at their stations, the more to frighten the Greeks with a show of discipline and order. This was no little work, although to keep things in perspective, it does not compare to the 120-plus-nautical-mile-per-day voyage that a trireme fleet was capable of making. Still, the rowers at Phaleron must have been hungry. The Persian officers and marines, who had not had to exert themselves as much as the oarsmen, were no doubt very well fed.

  The rowers are likely to have had simpler fare, such as onions, salt fish, thyme, salt, and barley groats. Foraging parties might have gone out for seasonal fruit, such as figs and apples, while hunters might have bagged birds or rabbits. Fresh water was essential after the toil of rowing. The one thing that most everyone would have craved was wine, the standard drink from Greece to Persia, except for Egypt, where beer was the staple drink of the poor. Especially before going into battle, a little wine went a long way. Whether all these needs were met depended in large part on the ability of Persia’s merchant ships to keep the supply lifeline going.

  After eating and drinking, the men would have divided into groups. Ship’s carpenters and their assistants would have checked for problems and made what repairs were needed—and on a boat, some repairs are always needed. Some men would have gossiped. Some would have played games like checkers or dice. Some might have sung. Others might have prayed, for everyone knew that the morning might bring the great naval battle that they had long awaited. And those who could have would have gone to sleep.

  But any rest would have proven short. Before midnight, the order would have come to launch the fleet at once, that is, to move the bulk of the fleet. Before the general order for mobilization was given, a squadron had already been sent out on a special mission. We do not know which ships or how many were dispatched. Their assignment was to occupy Psyttaleia, an islet between Salamis and the mainland.

  Psyttaleia greatly interested Persia’s high command because of its strategic location. Specifically, it lay in the pathway of the coming naval battle. Once the fighting began, many men and shipwrecks would be carried there, as the Persians imagined, and whoever controlled Psyttaleia could help his own forces and kill the enemy’s.

  A look at the map shows that Psyttaleia lies at the entrance to the Salamis channel, and so at one end of rather than in the middle of what would be the battlefield. But it certainly did lie “in the pathway” of any Greek flight out of the straits, just as it lay between the eventual battlefield and the Persian base at Phaleron Bay. Furthermore, the more shoreline one controlled in a naval engagement, the better, precisely in order to save or kill shipwrecked men and to capture any damaged hulls that came ashore. The Persians already controlled the Attic coast and the Greeks the coast of Salamis; by taking Psyttaleia, the Persians created another shoreline stronghold. Note also that the southeast shore of Psyttaleia is far enough away from Salamis that, on a dark night, the Persians could land there undetected. All of this explains the priority of Psyttaleia in Persian plans.

  But the main task back at Phaleron was to mobilize the bulk of the Persian fleet, well over 100,000 men (a total of about 150,000 minus the men sent to Psyttaleia). Simply moving that number would be an achievement. Moving them in a swift and orderly way was a marvel, especially when the men had already put in an afternoon’s work. Yet that was just what the Persians now did.

  When the order to launch the ships came, every rower had to file aboard and find his place. He probably carried a small amount of food and water with him, enough to get through the long night and day ahead but not so much as to weigh down the boat.

  Every trireme was provided with two ladders at the stern, and the men could have boarded each ship in pairs. It probably took no more than fifteen minutes to man a ship. The boat would not have been filled haphazardly but, rather, by sections: for example, by center, bow, and stern. Every rower was probably assigned a regular seat on board. This would allow him to get used to the timing of the men around him and to adjust his stroke accordingly. After taking his seat, each rower had to make an equipment check. First he had to ensure that his cushion was tied firmly to the seat. Then he had to inspect his oarloop. An oar is a lever; on every stroke, it has to turn around a support or fulcrum. On a trireme, the oar pivoted on an upright, wooden peg called a tholepin. The oar was held in place by a leather strap, sewn into a loop, the oarloop. The oarloop held the oar tightly against the tholepin.

  After constant use, the oarloops tended to stretch or crack. So each time the ship was launched, every rower had to examine his oarloop and readjust or even replace it as needed. The oarloops had to be greased from time to time with mutton tallow. Likewise rowers in the hold had to make sure that the leather oar port sleeves had remained watertight. These sleeves, too, had to be greased regularly.

  Meanwhile, the marines and archers gathered up their equipment. They put on their helmets, picked up their spears from where they had stood them—butt-end down—in the ground, adjusted their arrow cases, and placed their daggers in their belts. They were the last men to board the ship. We may imagine that, as in the Greek navy, these deck soldiers received a pre-battle speech on land from their commanders. Or rather, perhaps, a set of speeches, for no one language would have satisfied the makeup of the Persian navy. Everyone in the fleet knew how much was at stake, including their heads. Whether or not Xerxes threatened to punish any commander who let the Greeks escape, as Aeschylus claims, his habit of executing those who failed him was well known.

  Finally, before they launched the fleet, the men would have prayed. Libations would have been poured and, depending on a country’s customs, sacrifices made. The men would have lifted their voices to the Phoenician deities Eshmun, Astarte, and Melqart; to Apollo, worshipped alike by Greeks, Carians, and Lycians; to the Egyptian gods Neith and Sekhmet; and to Ahura Mazda, the Persian Lord of Wisdom.

  In terms of ethnic diversity, the Persian fleet at Phaleron was the second greatest assemblage of humanity in the history of the world to that date. Only the Persian army was greater. If one takes into account class as well as ethnicity, the Persian fl
eet was even more diverse than the army: in antiquity, rowers were poorer on average than infantrymen, and the personnel of the fleet ranged from penniless oarsmen to kings and one queen.

  The Persian navy was, says Aeschylus poetically, “the wonderful flock of Asia rich in men.” It included Egyptian “marines from the marshes, the skillful and innumerable rowers of ships,” “the crowd of easy-living Lydians,” “a long line of [Babylon’s] golden, mixed crowd mounted on ships and relying on their archer spirit,” and, of course, “the flower of the men of the Persian land.” Aeschylus says that there were Bactrians, Cilicians, Lyrnaeans, Mysians, and Phoenicians. Herodotus does not mention all these peoples in connection with the Persian navy, and we might wonder whether the ships really did carry Babylonian archers and Bactrians, men roughly from modern Afghanistan. By the same token, Aeschylus is discreetly silent about the large presence in the Persian fleet of Greeks: from Anatolia, Cyprus, the Aegean islands, and even the Greek mainland itself.

  Herodotus records the names of the most famous commanders in the fleet: besides Tetramnestus, they were two Phoenicians, King Matten son of Siromus from Tyre and Merbalus son of Agbalus from Aradus; a Cilician, the Syennesis, that is, the king, whose name we know only as the son of Oromedon; a Lycian, Cyberniscus son of Sycas; two Cypriots, Gorgus son of Chersis, king of the Cypriot city of Salamis (the name is a coincidence) and Timonax son of Timagoras; and three Carians, Pigres son of Hysseldomus, Damasithymus son of Candaules and king of the city of Calynda, and, of course, Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus. Above them stood four Persian admirals: Achaemenes son of Darius and Atossa, Xerxes’ full brother, commanded the Egyptians; Ariabignes son of Darius, Xerxes’ half brother, commanded the Ionians and Carians; while Megabazus son of Megabates and Prexaspes son of Aspathines commanded the rest of the fleet.