A History of Sea Power. Allan F. Westcott
triremes, that had been dispatched round the island of Eubœa to catch the Greeks in the rear, and not one of the Persian ships survived. The Greek rear guard squadron of fifty brought the welcome news to the main fleet and served as a much needed reënforcement. Although the Persian armada had lost about half its force in three days by storms, the odds were still so heavily against the Greeks that they found themselves in constant peril of having their flanks turned in this open sea fighting.
On the afternoon of the third day the pass of Thermopyæ was forced, thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas for reënforcements. With Thermopyæ taken there was no further reason for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Eubœa, and during the night it retired unobserved. The following day the Persian fleet advanced and brought to the army the supplies which it sorely needed.
With the fall of Thermopyæ and the contact established between his army and his fleet, Xerxes found his route open for the invasion of Attica. Since there was no possibility of opposing him on land, the population of the province was removed and Athens left to its fate. Themistocles, who was in command of the Athenian division of the Greek fleet, now urged the assembling of the fleet at Salamis, partly to cover the withdrawal of the Athenians and partly to assist in the defense of the Isthmus of Corinth, which was to be the next stand of the Greeks. The advice was adopted and the fleet assembled off the town of Salamis. Athenian refugees had crowded into the town and from the heights above they watched the smoke of their burning city. Their own future and the future of Athenian civilization hung on the long lines of triremes drawn up on the shore.
A glance at the map of the region of Salamis shows the advantages offered by the position for the defensive. The fighting off Artemisium had shown the peril of attacking a greatly superior force in the open because of the danger of being outflanked. In the narrow straits between Salamis and the mainland the Greek line of battle would rest its flanks on the opposite shores. But it is one thing to choose a position and another to get the enemy to accept battle in that position. If the Persians ignored the Greek fleet and moved to the Isthmus, the Greeks would be caught in an awkward predicament. To regain touch with the Greek army, the fleet would be then compelled to come out of the straits and fight at a disadvantage in the open. There was only one chance of defeating the Persian fleet and that was to make it fight in the narrow waters of the strait where numbers would not count so heavily. Everything depended on bringing this to pass.
Nor could the Greeks wait indefinitely for the Persians. Already the incorrigible jealousies of rival cities had almost reached the point of disintegrating the fleet. Although the commander in chief was the Spartan general Eurybiades, the whole Spartan contingent was on the point of deserting in a body to its own coasts. The situation was saved by Themistocles. Having wrung from his allies a reluctant consent to stop at Salamis temporarily to cover the withdrawal of the Athenian populace, the story is that he secretly dispatched a messenger to Xerxes to say that if he would attack at once he could crush the entire naval forces of the Greeks at a blow, but if he delayed the Greeks would scatter. Acting on this advice, Xerxes landed troops on the island of Psyttaleia, dispatched a squadron to block the western outlet of Salamis Straits, and proceeded to move the main body of his fleet to attack the Greeks by way of the eastern channel. The preparations were made during the night and were not completed till dawn of the day of battle, September 20, 480 B.C.
The debates in the allied fleet came to an end with the appearance of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded. The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but they would fight with better chance of success than under any other circumstances.
The Greek force consisted of about 380 vessels. Of these, Athens contributed 180, Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesus were represented by 89 and the remainder were made up of squadrons from the island states. Some of these island contingents contained a type of ship different from the triremes, the penteconter. This was a galley with only one bank of oars, but these were long sweeps, each manned by five oarsmen. The penteconter was an early prototype of the galley of the Christian era.
The Persians had been reduced by this time to about 600 ships, although there had been numerous reënforcements since the disaster at Cape Sepias. The fleet was "Persian" only in name, for, except for bands of Persian archers on some of the ships, it was composed of elements levied from each of the subject nations that followed the sea. Indeed Persia is a curious example in history of a nation with a purely artificial sea power, for its navy was composed of aliens entirely. Thus the squadron that was sent to blockade the western end of the straits was Egyptian, the right wing of the fleet as it advanced to the attack was composed of Phœnicians, and the center and left was made up of Cyprians, Cilicians, Samothracians, and Ionians, the latter only recently in rebellion against Persia and at that time welcoming help from Athens in a cause in which Athens herself was now involved. Apparently there was no compunction felt on this account, for the Ionians distinguished themselves by gallant fighting against their Greek brethren. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine difficulties involved in the task of making a unit of such an assortment of peoples. The fleet was commanded by a Persian, Prince Ariabignes, brother of Xerxes.
At daybreak the Persian triremes drew up in three lines on each side of the island of Psyttaleia and advanced into the straits. But the narrowing waters of the channel made it necessary to reduce the front and bear to the left. Consequently all formation was lost, and the Persian triremes poured into the narrows "in a stream,"—to quote the phrase of the tragedian Æschylus, who fought on an Athenian trireme in this battle and describes it in one of his plays.
Facing the invader was a smaller array of ships but a better ordered line of battle. On the Greek left was the Athenian division opposing the advancing triremes of Phœnicia; on the right was the Spartan division facing the Greeks of Asia Minor. The two fleets rushed toward each other, but just before contact the Persians found themselves embarrassed by their very number of ships. As may be seen by the map, they had an awkward turn to make in entering the narrows. At this point, just opposite the peninsula of Salamis, the straits are only about 2000 yards wide, making it impossible for more than 80 or 90 triremes to advance abreast. As a result the Phœnician wing of the line was extended considerably in advance of the rest, forced ahead by the pressure of ships behind. Although, as a matter of fact, the Spartan wing also was somewhat in advance of the rest of the Greek line, the first shock of battle came between the Phœnicians and the Athenians.
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| After Grundy, The Great Persian War. |
| THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 BC |
| The Original PositionThe AdvanceThe Contact |
This initial advantage offered by an exposed wing was immediately seized upon. While the Athenians bore the frontal attack, the Æginetans on their right fell upon the Phœnicians' flank. This double attack on the Persian right wing eventually proved the turning point of the battle. The Phœnicians, however, had the reputation of being the foremost sea fighters in the world, and they bore themselves well. Similarly the Asiatic Greeks proved themselves foemen worthy of their brethren from the Peloponnesus, and the fight was maintained with great ferocity all along the line. The inhabitants of Athens who had been removed to Salamis blackened the shores on one side of the Strait, as anxious watchers of the tremendous spectacle. Opposite them on the slope of Mt. Ægaleos sat Xerxes himself, surrounded by his staff, a less anxious spectator but no less interested in the outcome.
About seven o'clock a fresh westerly wind arose, as it does at this day in that region, and as it did some years later during a battle won by an Athenian admiral in the Gulf of Corinth.[1] This wind blows every morning with considerable violence for about two hours; and in this battle it must have tended to make the bows of the Persian ships pay off—thus exposing their sides to the Greek rams—and drift back upon the galleys that were crowding forward from the rear in the attempt to get into the battle.
[Footnote 1: The Battle of the Corinthian Gulf: v. p. 43]
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