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

by Barry Strauss

  The full complement of each ship was 230 men: 200 natives, including rowers and marines, plus a group of 30 men consisting of a mix of Iranian (either Persians or Medes) and Sacae marines and archers. In wartime, few units manage to maintain their notional strength, especially after the storms and battles suffered by the Persians. No doubt Xerxes’ new recruits had narrowed the manpower gaps, but some of the triremes may well still have been undermanned.

  With their contingents of forty marines and archers, the decks of Persian triremes bristled with fighting men. The marines of the Persian fleet were as colorful a lot as had ever sailed. Dressed in uniforms ranging from bronze or linen breastplates to woolen tunics and goatskin capes, and from bronze or plaited helmets to turbans, they carried a wide assortment of weapons. Their arms ran the gamut from javelins and swords to sickles and daggers to boarding pikes, long knives, and heavy axes.

  The largest contingent of deck soldiers was the Iranian and Sacae marines and archers. As far as we know, they were armed like their infantrymen. The Persians and Medes were dressed in soft felt caps, embroidered tunics with sleeves, fish-scale iron breastplates, and trousers; they carried wicker shields, quivers, bows and arrows, short spears, and daggers. The Sacae wore trousers and tall pointed hats; they carried bows and arrows, daggers, and battle-axes.

  The Sacae had a reputation as formidable archers, and, by all accounts, they deserved it. The Greeks on deck would have their hands full defending themselves with their shields against the Sacae. If his ship was rammed, a Greek who swam to safety would be vulnerable to Sacae arrows.

  Once the Persian ships were loaded, the men harangued, the prayers and libations made, the fleet was ready to depart. In all likelihood, the Phoenicians held the western end of the shore, the Egyptians were in the center, while the Ionians and Carians moored their ships in the east.

  At a signal, the fleet began to depart. They left by squadron, forming up in line-ahead order. Aeschylus writes:

  On the long ships, rank encouraged rank

  And each one sailed in its appointed place.

  Plausibly, the Phoenicians in the west went first, followed by the Egyptians in the center—unless they had already left to commandeer Psyttaleia—and finally the Greeks and Carians in the east. On each ship, rowers strained to get the vessel going from a standing start. It would have been efficient to have the top level of rowers get the boat moving and then have the two lower levels join in later. The rowers took short strokes at first, increasing them in length until the ship was well under way and gliding freely between strokes.

  Around the shore of the bay, torches lit the scene. As squadron after squadron quit the shoreline and rowed in serried order westward toward the open sea, as warship after warship disappeared in the darkness, an observer on the beach might have considered the destiny of the Great King’s armada. Perhaps the Persian fleet had looked more glorious at its inspection by Xerxes after crossing the Hellespont in June, when it was twice as large and half as tired, but never had it looked as brave as it did now, on its final journey to the fatal straits.

  Aeschylus and Herodotus agree that the fleet was divided into three sections. Aeschylus portrays Xerxes’ orders to his admirals:

  Arrange the close array of ships in three columns,

  And some, in a circle around the island of Ajax,

  Guard the harbor entrances and the pathways of the roaring sea.

  Aeschylus’s words are vague enough to refer to an operation that closed off every port in Salamis; or one that closed off just those harbors on the eastern side, where the Greek fleet was moored; or one that closed off both the harbors where the Greeks were and also the western channel, near Megara, which was a possible escape route. It would be reasonable to describe a fleet that starts out from Phaleron Bay and wheels north and west into the Salamis straits as “circl[ing] around the island.” Herodotus refers only to Persian operations in the Salamis straits, as does Plutarch. But a later historian says that the Egyptian contingent of two hundred ships rowed all the way around the island, to close off the escape route via the western channel between Salamis and Megara. Herodotus says nothing about the position of the Egyptians in the battle, but he specifies only the positions of the Phoenicians, the Ionians, and the Carians, the three most important contingents in the Persian fleet.

  This later account is probably wrong. The Egyptians would have had to row all night to go around Salamis. The Greek fleet might have already fled by the time they arrived. When the Egyptians reached their destination, the western channel, they would have found a narrow strait only about 1,300 feet wide. If the Egyptians attempted to fight the Greeks there, they would have been at a substantial disadvantage against the heavier Athenian triremes, and they might also have been outnumbered. No ancient source mentions any fighting in this western channel, yet Aeschylus specifies that Egyptians were killed in the battle of Salamis. Finally, the later source has a nasty habit of improving earlier accounts, that is, inventing details. With all this in mind, we should imagine the Egyptians with the rest of the Persian fleet, heading northwestward from Phaleron into the Salamis straits. Indeed, it is plausible that the Egyptians formed the squadron that had been sent on ahead to secure Psyttaleia.

  Herodotus’s account, fortunately, is much more specific than Aeschylus’s. According to Herodotus, after it left Phaleron Bay, the western wing of the Persian fleet—plausibly, the Phoenicans—wheeled toward Salamis. Indeed, this wing needed to do so: a look at the map shows that if it had continued in a straight line, the western wing would have missed Salamis and rowed toward Aegina. The rest of the Persian fleet, starting out from the eastern and perhaps central beaches of Phaleron Bay, was able to row almost in a straight line toward the Salamis channel.

  The ability of one part of the Persian fleet to wheel around in the darkness while maintaining good order bespeaks enormous skill. This is another reason to suspect that the crack Phoenician squadrons were involved. It is also a reminder of how difficult it would be for the entire Persian fleet to enter the straits and to form a continuous, orderly line, without gaps, against the Greeks. If the Greeks were indeed in disarray and in flight, the Persians could afford a few mistakes. If, however, the Greeks formed up in battle order, the Persians would have to be perfect.

  Meanwhile, the central-eastern part of the Persian fleet, says Herodotus, “was posted between Ceos and Cynosura.” The Cynosura peninsula on Salamis is clear, but we do not know where Ceos was. In any case, we do know that the Persian fleet “held the entire passage with its ships all the way to Munychia.” In other words, the Persian fleet stretched all the way from the western border of Phaleron Bay, past Piraeus, to the Attic coast opposite Psyttaleia, the islet where an advance squadron was unloading Persian soldiers.

  To the extent that the Persian ships were visible in the dark, they would have made an extraordinary sight. The fleet would have looked like a bridge of boats between the mainland and the islet of Psyttaleia, a distance of about one and one-fourth miles. The bridge surely did not continue all the way to Salamis, because the Persians had to steer clear of the island in order to remain undetected.

  Indeed, it would be a mistake to think of the Persian fleet as literally blocking the Salamis straits. Herodotus never mentions a blockade; instead, he speaks of the Persians “encircling” the Greeks or “surrounding” them or “guarding” the waterways. Triremes were not built to stand still, as in a blockade; they were built to move fast and agilely, whether attacking or fleeing.

  The massing of the Persian fleet was something, marvels Herodotus, which the oracle-mongers had predicted. Well, almost predicted: these verses from the Oracle of Bacis, which predate the battle and which Herodotus cites, seem to envision a wider bridge than actually would have been found:

  But when they bridge with boats the hallowed shore

  Of Artemis of the golden sword and seagirt Cynosura,

  Driven by manic hopes after they sack fertile Athens,

  The
n shall awful Justice quench great Excess, the son of Pride,

  Raging terribly, planning to attack everywhere.

  Bronze will mix with bronze, and Ares will dye the sea

  With crimson blood.II Then shall the far-seeing son of Cronos

  And Lady Victory bring the day of freedom for Greece.

  The oracle is vague enough to be flexible: there were temples of Artemis on Salamis and on the hill of Munychia Hill and elsewhere in Attica; there were Cynosura peninsulas on Salamis and also at Marathon, site of past glory (near which there were also two Artemis temples). But the oracle clearly predicts a victory at sea over a big fleet after the sack of Athens. It is hard not to wonder whether it might not be a piece of propaganda, delivered before the Persian invasion, in favor of Themistocles’ strategy of abandoning Attica and pinning all Greece’s hopes in the fleet. It may even refer to Salamis.

  In any case, the bridge of boats moved quickly. The leading column of the Persians entered the Salamis straits. But just how many ships followed them is a crucial question and, unfortunately, unclear. Before turning to it, consider the manner in which the Persians rowed up the straits.

  Sailors always look to the sky. In September, the stars of the Bear, or, as the Egyptians preferred, the Thigh of the Bull, were low and bright in the early evening sky; we call these stars Ursa Major or the Big Dipper. But the main feature of the night sky was in the south, which in that season became what the ancients called the Water or the Sea Sky. The southern sky was filled with such constellations as the Goat-Fish, the Dolphin, the Southern Fish, the Water Bearer, the Sea Monster, and the Fish. So the Phoenicians and Greeks would have known them; today they are Capricorn, Delphinus, Piscis Austrinus, Aquarius, Cetus, and Pisces. But in the darkness of the early hours of September 25, the men of the Persian fleet are unlikely to have seen many stars. It is likely that they had chosen a cloudy night to enter the straits.

  The Persian fleet entered the straits as silently as possible. “They did everything in an undertone,” says Herodotus, “in order to keep the enemy from hearing them.” It was impossible to move seven hundred ships in complete silence, but it was possible to drop the decibels to a minimum. Indeed, rowing undetected in the dark would become, if it was not already, a standard trireme maneuver. Salamis was not the only occasion on which the commander of a trireme fleet successfully moved his ships down one side of a narrow strait at night in order to avoid detection by an enemy whose ships were moored on the other side: the Athenian navy did just that when it rowed past the Spartans in the Hellespont in the narrows near Abydos in 411 B.C.

  At Salamis in 480 B.C. the Persians no doubt kept their ships as far away from the island as possible and as close as they could to the Attic shore, that is, to Persian-controlled territory. In addition, they might have instructed rowing masters and pipers not to call out or pipe each stroke but, rather, to keep time by striking stones together—as a Spartan fleet did when successfully surprising the Athenians in the Saronic Gulf at night in 388 B.C.—or perhaps by leading the crew in humming or whispering a rhythmic song. They might have muffled the oars by keeping the stroke rate low and catching the water with soft and easy motions. Meanwhile, the roar of the Persian army marching westward along the coast of Attica would have drowned out much of the sound made by the fleet.

  Besides sight and sound, the Persians might have given some thought to smell. The dried sweat of tens of thousands of rowers was a dead giveaway of the approach of a trireme fleet. The odor could be detected perhaps a mile or more away if the wind was blowing. The Persians could have reduced the odor by washing out their boats while at Phaleron. Otherwise, they had to hope that the wind wasn’t against them.

  Perhaps the Persians also reaped the benefit of Greek overconfidence. It does not seem to have occurred to the Greeks that the Persians were about to infiltrate the straits, and certainly not at night. That very evening they had seen the enemy mass his fleet outside the straits. There seemed little danger that he would come back that same night to take the chance of entering unfavorable waters. But that is just what the Persians did.

  Just before dawn, on a likely reconstruction, the leading ships of the Persian fleet had rowed into the straits and continued along the Attic coast for about two miles northwestward. They probably sat at the foot of Mount Aegaleos, opposite the islet of St. George, that is, the northernmost mooring point of the Greek fleet. These Persian ships now guarded the Greek escape route northward toward Eleusis, Megara, and the western channel separating Salamis from the mainland. The rest of the fleet extended along the coast of Attica for about four miles.

  Although most of the Persian fleet had entered the straits, a large part had not. They were formed up farther to the southeast, east of Psyttaleia in the waters toward Piraeus, that is, outside of the straits altogether. Since the Persians expected the Greeks to be fleeing, they would have reserved a considerable contingent of ships to guard the southern exit from the Salamis straits, just as the Phoenicians now guarded the northern exit.

  Within the straits, the Phoenicians and Ionians—along with, we may imagine, the other Greeks—anchored the opposite ends of the Persian line. Herodotus states that “the Phoenicians . . . held the western wing, that is, toward Eleusis” and “the Ionians . . . held the wing toward the east and Piraeus.” The Ionians took up their stations about two miles to the southeast of the Phoenicians at the foot of Mount Aegaleos; plausibly, the Ionians were arranged opposite Ambelaki Bay and the southern end of the Greek mooring stations.

  What Herodotus does not indicate is where the rest of the Persian ships were: that is, the Carians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Pamphylians, and Lycians; the Egyptians possibly were on Psyttaleia. He does mention two Carian ships in the thick of the fight, while Diodorus claims that the Cypriots, Cilicans, Pamphylians, and Lycians were arranged in that order from the Phoenicians to the Ionians; Diodorus has the Egyptians off at the western channel. But Diodorus’s account of Salamis inspires little confidence, and the Carians might have joined the battle late. Some or all of the ships from Caria, Cilicia, Cyprus, Egypt, Lycia, and Pamphylia took up a position outside the straits.

  Nor can we assume that those ships within the straits were lined up and ready in battle order when dawn broke. The length and difficulty of their journey in the dark, the need to maintain near silence, the great number of ships involved, the twists and curves of the straits, the expectation of an enemy in panic, the inevitable mistakes and confusion in any nighttime operation, all add to our understanding of why the Persians had to scramble when the Greeks came out to fight.

  In any case, whether a Persian ship was inside the straits or outside, its crew was not at rest. A trireme fleet lined up in formation cannot maintain its order simply by dropping anchor. It is necessary for the rowers in each ship, or for a portion of them in turn, to alternate strokes in a continuous movement of rowing and backing, rowing and backing.

  On every ship, calloused hands ignored the friction of the oar; muscles that had not rested from the afternoon’s exertion pulled yet again. On and on they worked. “They didn’t get even a little sleep,” says Herodotus. Aeschylus writes:

  The lords of the ships kept the entire rowing crew

  At their oars all the livelong night.

  Little by little, the hours of effort must have taken their toll. A commander who understood triremes would have thought twice before asking his men to go into battle so tired. The king of seafaring Sidon surely saw the danger, but Tetramnestus did not have the final say. Xerxes did, and Xerxes had never touched an oar.

  Herodotus reports an anecdote about a Phoenician trireme on which Xerxes is supposed to have traveled after Salamis. A storm blew up, and at the pilot’s advice, Xerxes ordered some men to jump overboard in order to lighten the boat’s load. Xerxes had to choose between the Persian noblemen on deck and the Phoenician rowers below. Herodotus has no doubt about it: Xerxes would have sent the rowers overboard.

  Herodotus rejects the sto
ry as just a tall tale, but even so, perhaps it reveals the Great King’s sense of priorities. For Xerxes, the rowers were expendable; only the Persians on deck counted. He seems to have thought of oarsmen as human beasts of burden. But as a horseman, Xerxes should have known that even beasts break down, and every animal is limited by its body.

  Had he ever scrutinized the men who rowed his ships, the Great King would not have delivered them to the enemy at dawn after a night spent pulling an oar.

  * * *

  II. A pun in Greek, where the word for “crimson” is phoinikeos, just one letter away from the word for “Phoenician,” phoinikos.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SALAMIS

  The poet is going to war. Although he is forty-five years old, on September 25 he is ready to wear once more the same old breastplate that he had worn ten years earlier at Marathon. This time he will surely want to fight on deck, as a marine, or to go below deck and pull an oar. Doesn’t Athens need every man? Yet he will not complain if, in the end, the commanders decide that there are enough younger men to serve at sea and that he, instead, should line the beach at Salamis, waiting to drive his pike into any Persian survivor who is fool enough to stagger ashore. He is a patriot of the old school. He is also one of the most famous men in the city, having won first prize at the Festival of Dionysos only four years earlier, in 484 B.C. He is a local boy; from Salamis you can practically see his birthplace across the water at Eleusis, the birthplace as well of his brother Cynegirus, may the gods rest his soul, heroically departed a decade ago on the battlefield of Marathon. The son of Euphronius, he is the tragedian Aeschylus.