Why did the Greeks uniformly adopt such a restricted instrument of naval warfare? One must be reminded of their settling on an apparently equally peculiar choice of formation in land warfare, the close-packed mass of infantrymen in the phalanx, which the Persian general Mardonius was to ridicule as useful only in straight encounters on flat land.32 But just as there were solid reasons for the dominance of the phalanx, so too the trireme was admirably adapted to its primary function, battle at sea, "an entirely new kind of craft, one that was, in effect, a man-driven torpedo armed with a pointed cutwater for puncturing an enemy hull."33 Powered as it was by oarsmen, it was precisely maneuverable to sheer along the side of another warship, snapping off its oars, and then turning to ram a vulnerable stern. Ramming, indeed, was dangerous prow to prow; in the battle of Alalia the Phocaeans lost 40 ships in battle and of the 20 remaining the "beaks were so bent and blunted as to be no longer serviceable."34 By the fifth century the Athenians in particular had become much more proficient in naval tactics, which were summed up by the admiral Phormio in an address to his men in the Gulf of Corinth:
One cannot sail up in the proper way to make an attack by ramming, unless one has a good long view of the enemy, nor can one back away at the right moment if one is hard pressed oneself; it is impossible also to sail through the enemy's line and then wheel back on him-which are the right tactics for the fleet which has the superior seamanship. Instead of all this, one would be compelled to fight a naval action as though it were a battle on land, and under those circumstances the side with the greater number of ships has the advantage.35
His two subsequent victories over the Corinthians are almost unique in naval history inasmuch as they were won primarily by maneuver.36
The advantages of a galley for warfare made it the warship par excellence all across ancient history and on through medieval Venetian and other navies; still in the late eighteenth century the Russians had a fleet of galleys in the Black Sea, which John Paul Jones commanded for a time. Not until gunpowder had made its appearance and sailing ships could be equipped with cannon as floating platforms for attack from a distance did the galley lose its utility. Since triremes, despite Phormio's preference for maneuver, did often close in for hand-to-hand combat they were not only provided with a limited number of archers, javelin throwers, and marines, but also the rowers might have to engage in the fray.37 Accordingly, oarsmen were always free men in antiquity and medieval times; slaves or convicts could be used only in times of emergency.38
Economically, as noted earlier, the progress of the Aegean world by 500 rested on waterborne commerce in a variety of commodities, including grain, and it had grown much wealthier. Now an instrument of naval warfare had been fashioned that could be utilized to secure command of the seas if a state had access to proper timber supplies and hemp (for the girding cables that helped hold a trireme together). The average Greek state, however, numbered no more than a population of a thou sand, and could at best have only one or two warships 39 Creating a navy, manning its vessels, and replacing worn-out warships at least every 20 years required the resources and manpower of much larger communities such as Athens, Corinth, or Sparta; and even then some form of pooling of interstate resources was almost essential for any Greek strength on the seas.40
By the closing decades of the sixth century two other areas of the Mediterranean had progressed politically or economically to be able to support navies from their own wealth, and also had reason to do so. When the Phoenician coast came under the control first of the Assyrians and then the Persians, the settlements in the western Mediterranean were cast adrift, if indeed they had ever been supervised by Tyre and Sidon. Cultural connections remained so strong that after the Persian king Cambyses conquered Egypt and wished to use Phoenician ships to extend his power westward to Carthage he met a flat refusal "to war on their own children,"41 but politically mastery of the network of Phoenician outposts in Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain was acquired by Carthage at least by the sixth century. This vast trading empire produced extensive profits in gold, silver, and other objects; to support their control the Carthaginians created the first true thalassocracy in ancient times, and deliberately sent exploratory missions in the Atlantic Ocean down the African coast and up as far as Britain.
We know little about how its fleet was organized save that the inner of the two harbors at Carthage was the military port, nor can we guess its size. Apart from a very doubtful battle with Massalia about 600 the only known naval conflict is that against the Phocaean colony at Alalia in Corsica in 535, and even though the Carthaginians joined forces with the Etruscans they were defeated; the Greeks, however, had eventually to retreat to Elea on the Italian coast. Carthage, even so, had a reputation for being ruthless with all foreign ships invading its preserves, and repelled the effort of the Spartan Dorieus to found a colony in Libya. There is a fair amount of testimony to piracy in the early western Mediterranean, especially by Etruscans and the natives of the Lipari islands, but one may presume that Carthaginian strength limited their preying on trade mainly to Italian waters.42
The Greek colonies in Sicily were too divided politically to mount a unified threat on the sea; the Etruscan states might have done so but were generally on good terms with the Cartha- ginians.43 The Carthaginian fleet thus need not have been a large force, especially since it was backed by skillful diplomatic activity. From the first years of the Roman Republic (508-7) there survived to the days of Polybius a treaty in which the Romans agreed essentially to trade only with Carthage, Sardinia, and western Sicily, a treaty renewed in 348. That its provisions were respected is proved by the fact that at the later date pottery made in Rome was exported only to the regions in question but not farther in Africa.44
The other area was the Persian empire. The Persians were landlubbers, as Herodotus noted;45 but they were aggressive in expanding their empire and strong enough to master any adjacent waters. Darius extended Persian rule into northwest India "and made use of the sea [i.e., the Persian Gulf] in those parts."48 When he invaded Scythia the Ionians had to provide ships with which to bridge the Hellespont and protect his communications. The Persian monarchs also relied on the naval strength of the Phoenicians. To invade Egypt Cambyses expanded his naval strength greatly beyond the resources that the Phoenicians could furnish; by 500 the Persians had 200 warships on hand for the tyrant of Miletus in his promise to subjugate the Aegean islands. As we shall see in the next chapter, Persian naval mastery of the eastern Mediterranean was not to be challenged until Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480-79.
The political structure of the Greek world itself had matured across the age of expansion to produce the fully developed polis, a body of citizens united in common worship of a patron divinity and equipped with a well-organized pattern of government that could levy harbor tolls and other fees to tap the growing wealth of their ports. The major poleis along the Aegean shores had come to rely, as already noted, on imports of metals, grain, and so on, which were matched by exports of manufactured wares. The island state of Aegina was particularly active in the transport of grain from south Russia down the Hellespont, which the refugee Histaeus of Miletus blockaded briefly in 494; it was not accidental that Aegina was also prominent in putting down piracy, as in the case of Samian exiles at Cretan Cydonia, who tried to attack trade to Egypt. Corinth played a similar role in the Adriatic and had a fleet of some 70 ships by the end of the sixth century. Thucydides' sketch of early Greek history measures its advance in terms of increasing use of the sea, and Thucydides even asserts that navies to the outbreak of the Persian wars "were still a great source of strength . . . they brought in revenue and they were the foundation of empire. . . . There was no warfare on land that resulted in the acquisition of an empire. What wars there were were simply frontier skirmishes."47
This is a fascinating example, the first in Western literature, of the distorted role assigned to sea power, for the political and military conflicts of Greek states by land actually had
a very important result, the mastery by Sparta of all the Peloponnesus save for Argos. Sparta had no desire to extend its power farther, partly because it always needed to keep an eye on its helots, who revolted more than once, and by the end of the sixth century had formed a league of its dependent allies, who had their own assembly and a voice in general decisions. The Greek world often turned to Sparta for counsel and protection; in particular it was to give invaluable leadership when the Persians invaded Greece, for the Spartans stood firmly against any external threat or internal aggression.
In view of the conventional view of Sparta as conservative and land-locked it may appear surprising that in the sixth century Sparta was one of the most active Greek states on the sea; when it had occasion to intervene in Athens to expel the Pisistratid dynasty the army of Cleomenes came by sea and met no resistance in landing at Phalerum. Once it even reached its power across the Aegean to attack Polycrates of Samos, though unsuccessfully. Polycrates, tyrant c. 540-22, was according to Herodotus the first man consciously to try to exercise naval mastery.48 He began active piratical campaigns with a fleet of pentekonters, and then moved on to build the far more complicated and expensive triremes. Eventually the Persians tricked him into coming to the mainland, where they seized and crucified him.
The Greek state that was advancing most rapidly in the eco nomic sphere in the sixth century was Athens. Its urban focus became steadily larger and was embellished by Pisistratus and his sons; one of these, Hippias, enticed the poet Anacreon fron Cnidus by sending a warship-a pentekonter-to fetch him, and otherwise supported arts and letters.4° Athenian potters developed first the famed black-figure style of vases and then by the last quarter of the sixth century the red-figure style; by this time they had driven Corinthian and Laconian rivals out of the market all over the Mediterranean. The wares of one Athenian potter, Nicosthenes, have been found in south Russia, Egypt, and Etruria; and for the latter patrons Nicosthenes made vases in Etruscan shapes and decorated with myths appealing to the Etrus- cans.50 Potters, smiths, and other inhabitants of bustling Athens ate seaborne grain as much as Milesians or Ephesians did.
Yet Athens played an insignificant role on the sea until 500. Its vases in the eighth century, one may recall, depicted galleys engaged in coastal raids, and there was a formal structure of naucraries, coastal districts, which were obligated to provide warships much like the English Cinque Ports.61 Nonetheless, the fleet that could be assembled was totally inadequate to cope with the naval strength of Aegina, a few miles across the Saronic Gulf, though Athens and Aegina were very commonly at odds. In their greatest conflict before 500 the Athenians were so weak that they bought 20 ships from Corinth to make up a total of 70, which won an initial naval battle, but then the Aeginetans fell on the Athenians in disorder and routed them.52 The first reference to Athenian triremes comes only at the end of the sixth century; it even appears probable that the 20 ships the Athenians sent to Ionia in 498 were still pentekonters.63
Much later, in the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusan leader Hermocrates observed that "in fact the Athenians were more landsmen than the Syracusans and had only taken to the sea when forced to do so by the Persians."54 Accidents can have mighty effects in shaping the course of history. Yet while the expansion of Athens in the sixth century may have psychologically paved the way for the remarkable developments to follow, it remains true that in 500 the Carthaginians were dominant by sea in the western Mediterranean and the Persians in eastern waters.
CHAPTER III
Athens on the Sea
In 499 the Greek states on the western seaboard of Asia Minor rebelled against their Persian overlord and sent the Milesian leader Aristagoras to implore the aid of Sparta, the balance wheel of the Greek state system which usually answered cries of help. Unfortunately he made the mistake of showing a map of the world, a novel invention to the Spartans; when they discovered that the Persian capital was a three-month march inland they bade him be gone by nightfall, and his efforts to bribe king Cleomenes failed. At Athens, on the other hand, the envoy secured the support of the nascent Athenian democracy; Herodotus wryly deduced that "it seems indeed to be easier to deceive a multitude than one man." The Athenians sent 20 warships and Eretria added four. Herodotus accounted this aid which helped the rebels sack the Persian regional center of Sardis but then was withdrawn "the beginnings of ills for the Greeks and barbarians alike";' in another light it may be reckoned the first of a train of events that were to lead to remarkable results.
After initial successes the Ionian rebels had to face the full might of the Persians, who like all empires took time to assemble their forces, including a fleet provided by the Phoenician ports. For the first time in Aegean history the decisive turning point was a sea battle; off Lade in 495 the League navy was defeated when many of the Greek ships retreated.2 Miletus was taken early in the next year and was destroyed as an object lesson. To punish the Athenians for their aid, a small amphibious force was despatched in 490 straight across the Aegean. The Athenians dared not try to meet it on the sea even though it was encumbered by horse transports, but at Marathon on the east coast of Attica they secured a great victory by land. The Spartans, who had promised assistance, were delayed by a religious festival and arrived only after the battle was over, to marvel at the Persian dead. For the first time the Greek world could venture to feel that the Medes, as the Persians were often called, were not in- vincible.3
Then Darius died, and his son Xerxes had to spend several years consolidating his rule before he could return to the Greek problem; the Persian empire had many frontiers in Asia and Africa, and its leaders probably considered the Greeks as no more than a minor set of far-off barbarians, divided in internal friction. This time Xerxes majestically decided to lead the expedition himself to gain military glory. So a huge army and navy, twice the size of any force the Greeks could field, was assembled in Asia Minor during the fall of 481.
By this time two events had taken place at Athens; one might even say that the goddess Athena had worked two miracles for her favorite polis. The first was the discovery of a very rich lode in the state silver mines of Laurium. Normally the revenues were divided among the citizen body, but such was not to be the case this time. Second, Themistocles had become undisputed leader of Athens by ostracizing his opponents; praised by Thucydides as a man who "could best divine what was likely to happen in the remotest future," he persuaded his fellow citizens to expend the money on building the first major Athenian fleet, 200 triremes in all, and to begin fortifying the port of Piraeus as a base. As Thucydides sums up his policy, "It was he who first ventured to tell the Athenians that their future was on the sea."4 One can only speculate as to how so many ships could be built in a short space of time and whence the timber and hemp were secured.5 The four-drachma coins struck in great profusion by the Athenians at this point were among the most poorly designed ever to be issued by a Greek mint, and the ships must have been an equally scratch job even though Themistocles insisted on a sleek and maneuverable design.6
Still, these ships were to be the salvation of Greece; "the fate of Hellas depended on her navy," as Athenian envoys later reminded the Spartans.7 The Greek states that refused to surrender were only a small fraction of the multitude of mainland poleis, but they drew the proper lesson from the earlier dissensions of the Ionian rebels and concentrated command by land and by sea in the hands of Spartan leaders. In the spring of 480 they met at the isthmus of Corinth to concert their resistance. The Peloponnesians insisted on building a wall across the isthmus itself, a naive plan that quite overlooked the fact that the Persian fleet could outflank its defense and the likelihood that Argos, which had remained neutral out of hostility to Sparta, would join the Persians as soon as they drew near.
Themistocles analyzed matters quite differently. The Persian army numbered perhaps 180,000 men (Herodotus gives the incredible figure of 1,700,000), but its lightly equipped battalions were no match in open battle with the disciplined phalanxes of Gr
eek spearsmen. On the sea conditions were less favorable. The Persian navy had over 600 warships; the backbone consisted of the Phoenician contingents, far more skilled in rowing techniques than the Greeks. Yet there was a serious weakness in the Persian plan of invasion, which Themistocles' keen mind spotted. The army was so large that it had to move close to the shore to receive seaborne grain; the navy in turn hugged the coast to protect the supply vessels. If only the Greeks could defeat the Persian navy, Xerxes' army would be a less serious threat. To secure the proper conditions for naval victory two steps were necessary. The maritime powers among the Greek allies, especially Athens, must concentrate all their energies on the sea, and then the Greek admirals must inveigle the superior Persian navy into narrow waters where its numbers and the skill of the Phoenician galleys would be less effective. By dextrous argument Themistocles secured agreement that the Greeks would send their naval forces north with a small army to delay and, if possible, cripple the enemy.
At first the Greeks selected the vale of Tempe in northern Thessaly as a suitable line of defense but discovered that the position could be turned if the Persians made a short inland detour. Accordingly, they fell back to Thermopylae, where the coastal road was hemmed between sea and mountains to a path only 50 feet wide; the other routes from Thessaly south into Boeotia lay so far inland that the Persian strategic necessity of keeping army and navy together prevented their use. Off Thermopylae lay the island of Euboea, which would force the Persian navy to come into a narrow strait; to block its entry the Greek fleet anchored at the northern end of the strait at Artemisium, while a minor detachment guarded its southern exit. Since this was a delaying position, limited forces were committed by land. The Spartan king Leonidas led 300 Spartan elite with allies to total some 9000 men; the Spartan admiral Eurybiades, however, had most of the Athenian and other naval contingents, numbering 271 triremes in the main fleet.
The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History Page 3
