Battle of Salamis

The Battle of Salamis was a naval battle between the Greek city-states and Persia, fought in September, 480 BC in the straits between Piraeus and Salamis, a small island in the Saronic Gulf near Athens, Greece. The Greek victory marked the turning point of the campaign, leading to the eventual Persian defeat.

Background

On the third day of the indecisive Battle of Artemisium in August, 480 BC, news reached the Greek fleet of the outcome of the Battle of Thermopylae. The fleet fled towards Salamis to assist with the evacuation of Athens while Themistocles left on all springs of water along the way inscriptions addressed to the Ionian Greek crews of the Persian fleet that said:

Men of Ionia, that what you are doing is not proper, campaigning against your fathers and wishing to enslave Greece. It would be best if you came on our side. But if this is not possible, at least during the battle stand aside and also beg the Carians to do the same with you. But if you can not do either the one or the other, if you are chained by higher force and you can not defect during the operations, when we come at hand, act purposedly as cowards remembering that we are of the same blood and that the first cause of animosity with the barbarians came from you. (Herodotus, book VIII,22). The Persian army burned and sacked Plataea and Thespiai on Boeotia which did not surrender, and later did the same to Athens. There was disagreement on the Greek camp. The Spartans wanted to return to the Peloponnese, seal off the Isthmus of Corinth with a wall, and prevent the Persians from defeating them on land, but the Athenian commander Themistocles persuaded them to remain at Salamis, arguing that a wall across the Isthmus was pointless as long as the Persian army could be transported and supplied by the Persian navy. His argument depended on a particular interpretation of the oracle at Delphi, which prophesied that Salamis would "bring death to women's sons," but also that the Greeks would be saved by a "wooden wall". Themistocles interpreted the wooden wall as the fleet of ships, and argued that Salamis would bring death to the Persians, not the Greeks. Furthermore some Athenians who chose not to flee Athens, interpreted the prophecy literally, barricaded the entrance to the Acropolis with a wooden wall, and fenced themselves in. The wooden wall was overrun, they were all killed, and the Acropolis was burned down by the Persians (see Perserschutt).

Preparations

The Greeks had according to Herodotus 378 triremes and pentekonters (smaller fifty-oared ships). According to his list these cities sent:

Athens:	180
Corinth:	40
Aegina:	30
Chalcis:	20
Megara:	20
Sparta:	16
Sicyon:	15
Epidaurus:	10
Eretria:	7
Ambracia:	7
Troizen:	5
Naxos:	4
Leucas:	3
Hermione:	3
Styra:	2
Cythnus:	2
Ceos:	2
Melos:	2
Siphnus:	1
Seriphus:	1
Croton:	1
Total	366

As we can see his numbers add only to 366. It has been argued that the 12 missing ships were from Aegina guarding there against invasion. To those forces two more have to be added that defected from the Persians to the Greeks, one before Artemisium and one before Salamis. According to Aeschylus the Greek fleet numbered 310 triremes, while Ctesias claims there the Athenian fleet numbered only 110 triremes and not 180 as Herodotus claims. The fleet was effectively under Themistocles, but nominally led by the Spartan Eurybiades. The Spartans had very few ships to contribute, but they regarded themselves the natural leaders of any joint Greek military expedition, and always insisted that the Spartan general would be given command on such occasions.

The much larger Persian fleet consisted according to some modern estimates of 650Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους (History of the Greek nation) vol Β', Ekdotiki Athinon 1971-800Garoufalis N. Demetrius, Η ναυμαχία της Σαλαμίνας, η σύγκρουση που άλλαξε τον ρού της ιστορίας (The battle of Salamis, the conflict that changed the flow of history), Στρατιωτική Ιστορία (Military History) magazine, issue 24, August 1998 ships, although their original invasion force consisted of many more ships (1207) that had since been lost due to storms in the Aegean Sea and at Artemisium. Herodotus claims they were replaced in full but only mentions 120 ships from the Greeks of Thrace and an unspecified number from the Greek islands. Aeschylus also claims 1207 ships of which 1,000 were triremes and 207 fast ships. Diodorus Biblioteca Historica XI 3 and LysiasII,27 independently claim there were 1,200 at Doriskos. The 1207 trireme number (for the outset only) is also given by Ephorus while his teacher Isocrates VII,49 claims there were 1300 at Doriskos and 1200 IV, 93 at Salamis. Ctesias gives another number, 1,000 ships, (in a fragment given in Photios's book) while Plato, speaking in general terms Plato Laws, III 699 B refers to 1,000 ships and more. The Persians, led by Xerxes I, decided to meet the Athenian fleet off the coast of Salamis Island, and were so confident of their victory that Xerxes set up a throne on the shore, on the slopes of Mount Aegaleus, to watch the battle in style and record the names of commanders who performed particularly well.

Eurybiades and the Spartans continued to argue with Themistocles about the necessity of fighting at Salamis. They still wanted to fight the battle closer to Corinth, so that they could retreat to the mainland in case of a defeat, or withdraw completely and let the Persians attack them by land. Themistocles argued in favor of fighting at Salamis, as the Persian fleet would be able to continually supply their army no matter how many defensive walls Eurybiades built. At one point during the debate, tempers flared so badly that Eurybiades raised his staff of office and threatened to strike Themistocles with it. Themistocles responded calmly "Strike then, but hear me!" (in Greek "πάταξον μεν, άκουσον δε"). His eloquence was matched by his cunning. Afraid that he would be overruled by Eurybiades despite the Spartan's total lack of naval expertise, Themistocles sent an informer, a slave named Sicinnus, the teacher of his children, to Xerxes to make the Persian king believe that the Greeks had in fact not been able to agree on a location for battle, and would be stealthily retreating during the night. Xerxes believed Sicinnus and sent his Egyptian squadron to blockade the western outlet of the straits, which also served to block any Greek ships who might be planning to escape. Sicinnus was later rewarded with emancipation and Athenian citizenship. Artemisia, the queen of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor and an ally of Xerxes, supposedly tried to convince him to wait for the Greeks to surrender, as a battle in the straits of Salamis would be deadly to the large Persian ships, but Xerxes and his chief advisor Mardonius pressed for an attack. Throughout the night the Persian ships searched the gulf for the Greek retreat, while in fact the Greeks remained on their ships, asleep. During the night Aristides, formerly a political opponent of Themistocles, arrived to report that Themistocles' plan had worked, and he allied with the Athenian commander to strengthen the Greek force.

The battle

The next morning (possibly September 28, but the exact date is unknown, the Hellenic Navy celebrates September 12 as Battle of Salamis Day), the Persians were exhausted from searching for the Greeks all night, but they sailed in to the straits anyway to attack the Greek fleet. When it became obvious to the Greeks that the battle was inevitable morale rose, the fleet enthusiastically took to sea and started singing the "paianas"

Ω, παίδες Ελλήνων, ίτε

Ελευθερούτε πατρίδ' ελευθερούτε δε

παίδας, γυναίκας, θεών τε πατρώων έδη,

θήκας τε προγόνων,

νύν υπέρ παντών αγών

which means:

Children of the Greeks go on

Free the motherland, also free

Children, women, and the altars of the gods

And the graves of your ancestors,

Now above all is the fight.

This quote (from Aeschylus), especially the last line has later been used to describe desperate battle, not just in war but also in sports. A Corinthian detachment of probably 30 ships stayed back to guard against possible encirclement by the Egyptian detachment.

The formation of the two enemy fleets was such: On the Persian fleet at the right flank was the very powerful Phoenician fleet which had Mount Aegaleus on its back; on the left was the Ionian fleet (with the Carians on the extreme) while on the center were the other nations (Cypriots, Cilicians etc.) The main effort was probably to be taken by the Phoenicians who were intended to encircle and trap the enemy fleet. On the Greek fleet on the left were the ships of the Athenians (opposite to the Phoenicians) on the right, the position of honor, were the Spartans, Megareans and Aeginians with the rest of the fleet in the center. Megareans and Aeginians were placed on the right because they were considered more capable than the Athenians Diodorus Siculus, Biblioteca Historica, XI,18 and because in case of loss they had nowhere to flee to.

The Greek fleet started rowing towards the Persians, but when it became obvious that they would meet them at the center of the strait which was wide enough there to allow the Persians to use their numerical advantage, they started retreating. According to Plutarch Plutarch, Themistocles 14 this was not only to gain better position but also in order to gain time until the early morning wind. The fleet reached such a position that it was covered from the left side by the islet of Saint George and on the right by the peninsula of Kynosoura. At this point according to Aeschylus the ghost of a woman appeared shouting: "Until when are you Greeks going to continue to retreat?" Then the early morning wind started blowing raising waves, which shook the tall Phoenician ships more than the triremes. The ship of the Athenian Amenias of Pallene quickly rammed the lead Persian ship. At this, the rest of the Greeks joined the attack.

The Greek and Persian ships rammed each other and something similar to a land battle ensued. Both sides had marines on their ships (the Greeks with fully armed hoplites), and arrows and javelins also flew across the narrow strait. The wave motion made the archers on the Phoenician ships miss their target, thus giving advantage to the hoplites who fought hand to hand. Also the Greek triremes had the "emvolon", a long metal rod fitted to the front, which enabled them to sink the Phoenician ships more easily than they could be sunk themselves.

As at Artemisium, the much larger Persian fleet could not maneuver in the gulf. On the left flank the Athenians could maneuver better and call reinforcements to fill gaps while the Phoenicians with land on their back could not. But on the right flank, where the Greeks were outnumbered and with land on their back, the Persians had open water and could call reinforcements, limiting the Spartans and Aeginians to defense. The left managed to defeat its opposing force and encircle the enemy center. The chief Persian admiral Ariamenes rammed Themistocles' ship, but in the hand-to-hand combat that followed Ariamenes was killed by a Greek foot soldier. On his death confusion ensued because the chain of command was not fully determined. The Persians who had been encircled tried to turn back, but the strong wind trapped them; those that were able to turn around were also trapped by the rest of the Persian fleet that had jammed the strait.

At least 200 Persian ships were sunk, including one by Artemisia, who, finding herself pursued by a Greek ship, attacked and rammed a Persian vessel, convincing the Greek captain that she too was Greek; he accordingly abandoned the chase. Aristides took another small contingent of ships and recaptured Psyttaleia, a nearby island that the Persians had occupied a few days earlier. It is said that it was the Immortals, the elite Persian Royal Guard, who during the battle had to evacuate to Psyttaleia after their ships sank: they were slaughtered to a man. According to Herodotus, the Persians suffered many more casualties than the Greeks because the Persians did not know how to swim; one of the Persian casualties was a brother of Xerxes. Those Persians who survived and ended up on shore were killed by the Greeks who found them.

Xerxes, sitting ashore upon his golden throne, witnessed the horror. He remarked that Artemisia was the only general to show any productive bravery ramming and destroying nine Athenian triremes, saying, "My female general has become a man, and my male generals all become women." Herodotus, VII, 88 . When some Phoenicians before the end of the battle blamed the Ionians for cowardice, Xerxes who had just witnessed the battle and saw the courage of his Ionian fleet decided to decapitate the Phoenicians. Herodotus book VIII, 89-90. Thus it appears that Themistocles' psychological operation failed to make the Ionians fight with less resolve but succeeded in creating hostility between the different nations that comprised the Persian fleet.

Aftermath

The victory of the Greeks marked the turning point in the Persian Wars. Without his navy, Xerxes was unable to supply his huge army in resource poor Greece so he withdrew to the Hellespont. Here, he proposed to march his army back over the bridge of ships he had created, before the Greeks arrived to destroy it (although the Greeks had already decided not to do this). Xerxes returned to Persia, leaving Mardonius and a large force to hold the conquered areas of Greece. Mardonius recaptured Athens, but the Greek city-states joined together once more to fight him at the simultaneous battles of Plataea and Mycale in 479 BC, in which they routed and scattered the remaining Persian force.

The Athenian playwright Aeschylus, who participated in the battle, wrote at least three and possibly four plays about the Persian wars, only one of which, The Persians, survives. This play gives us most of our knowledge of the actual fighting that occurred at Salamis.

Significance

The battle of Salamis has been described by many historians (among them Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan and John Keegan) as the single most significant battle in human history. The Greek victory protected the nascent and singular traditions of democracy and individual rights, as well as guarding Greek philosophy and culture. This meant the eventual flowering of Western culture, which would likely have been snuffed out completely, had the Persians overrun Greece. Due to the enormous and wide-ranging influence of Western culture on all of human civilization, as well as the huge success of Western culture in its own right, it is literally possible that the world today would be utterly and basically different had the Greeks lost at Salamis.

Lord Byron famously wrote of the battle in his masterpiece Don Juan:

A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis

And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations;--all were his!

He counted them at break of day--

And when the sun set where were they?

(Don Juan, 86.4)

Trivia

The battle was supposedly fought on the same day as the Battle of Himera.

Sources

Herodotus, The Histories

Aeschylus, The Persians

Peter Green, The Greco-Persian Wars, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970 (revised 1996).

Strauss, Barry, The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece and Western Civilization. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. 2004. ISBN 0-7432-4450-8.

Hanson, Victor Davis, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power. Anchor Books, 2001. Published in the UK as Why the West has Won. Faber and Faber, 2001. ISBN 0571216404

References

External links

Livius Picture Archive: the naval battle off Salamis (480 BCE)

Naval battles | Battles of the Greco-Persian Wars | 480 BC

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