In the autumn of 481, Xerxes moved the army to Sardis in order to spend the winter there in training. The size of the army and navy that Xerxes led into Greece in the following year is a very thorny problem. The figures given by Herodotus are impossibly high: the total manpower was 5,283,220 (7.186.2). The infantry was said to have been 1,700,000 (7.60.1), as well as 300,000 from those Greeks who had ‘medized’, i.e. had gone over to the Persian side (7.185.2); in addition there were 80,000 cavalry, apart from the camels and the chariots (7.87.1). Modern scholarship has rightly rejected these numbers and has settled on 80,000 as a reasonable estimate of his land forces. As for the navy, Herodotus has evidently used the number given by Aeschylus in the Persai in lines 341–43: 1,000 ships and 207 ‘fast ships’ (7.89–95); in addition Herodotus has added 120 ships from the Greeks in Thrace and the islands off Thrace (7.185.1). Once again, this number has been reduced by modern historians to an estimate of around 600 ships. Although allowance has to be made for the patriotic zeal of the victorious Greeks in the creation of these wildly excessive numbers, it must be stressed that this was a mighty force, far bigger than anything that they had ever seen or faced in war.
When the Persian forces arrived at Sardis, Xerxes indulged in some psychological warfare:
Having arrived at Sardis, he first of all sent heralds to Greece, demanding earth and water and requiring the preparation of dinners for the king except to Athens and Sparta. … The reasons for sending heralds a second time for earth and water were these: he had the very confident belief that those, who had not given them at the time of Darius’ sending of heralds, would give them now through fear; and he wanted to know for sure if he was right in his judgement.
(Herodotus 7.32)
Herodotus’ list of those states that medized by offering earth and water cannot be accepted as accurate, since it included the states of central Greece who in all probability only came over to the Persian side after the Greek defeat in 480 at Thermopylae, when there was no choice (7.132). The capture of three Greek spies at Sardis, sent by the Hellenic League to gather information on the Persian forces, gave Xerxes another opportunity to put psychological pressure upon the Greeks. Having saved them from execution, ordered by his generals, Xerxes allowed them to have a guided tour of the whole army and then to leave Sardis unharmed so that accurate information of the vast size of his army could be relayed to the Greeks, and so undermine their will to resist (7.146–47).
The impending threat of Xerxes’ invasion in 481 had stirred the Greeks into action to prepare for the defence of their homeland. A conference of Greek states, including states that medized after Thermopylae, was probably convened by the Spartans, after strong encouragement by the Athenians, in Sparta (Pausanias 3.12.6). It was agreed to form the Hellenic League, as it is usually called in modern scholarship, and the purpose of which was to secure the freedom of the Greeks by resisting the Persians (7.148). A number of measures were probably decided upon at this conference: all feuds between member states should be brought to an end (7.145) – thus ending the conflict between Athens and Aegina; the command of both the army and the navy should be conferred on the Spartans (8.3); all those states who had medized voluntarily and not under compulsion should have their land confiscated (7.132); three spies should be sent to investigate the Persian army at Sardis (7.145); envoys should be sent to Argos, Syracuse, Crete and Corcyra to request military aid (7.145); and a second meetingofthenewLeagueshouldtakeplaceattheIsthmusinthespringof480, when the reports of the spies and the envoys would be available, in order to decide upon Greek strategy for that year. It is believed that the ‘proboulos’ (delegate) of each member state, large or small, had one vote and that decisions were arrived at by a majority of votes. However, as Herodotus only mentions two formal meetings of the League, there seems to have been no provision for regular meetings. Consequently the majority of the decisions about Greek strategy were taken by the councils of war, whose mode of operation and the exercise of Spartan leadership within them will be discussed below.
Greek strategy and Spartan leadership in 480
Herodotus’ figures for the size of the Greek army and navy are likely to be more trustworthy than those for the Persian forces, but should still be treated with caution. At Plataea, the main land battle of the war, he states that the Greek army consisted of 38,700 ‘hoplites’, which is believed to be a reasonably accurate estimate, and 69,500 light-armed troops, which is considered to be less reliable (9.29–30). With regard to the navy, there is also the evidence of Aeschylus who gives the number of ships that fought at the battle of Salamis. According to Herodotus (8.1–2) the original Greek fleet at Artemisium, the first sea-battle in the war, consisted of 271 ‘triremes’ (containing at least 150 rowers) and nine smaller penteconters (50 rowers), but this number was later increased by an extra 53 triremes (8.14): a total of 324 triremes and nine penteconters. At the battle of Salamis, Herodotus gives a total of 378 triremes and four penteconters (8.48; 8.82), but this increased number seems unlikely. The Greek fleet had suffered losses at the battle of Artemisium, and therefore the total of 310 triremes and 10 other ships, as stated by Aeschylus (Persai 339), seems more convincing. It is possible that Herodotus has given the total number of all the ships that fought at some time in the campaign without making allowances for losses.
Until the advent of the Peloponnesian War in 431, when the importance of light-armed troops was greatly increased by the need to fight in very rough and difficult terrain throughout the whole of Greece, success in war on land was almost always achieved by a state’s heavily armed hoplites (see Chapter 3 for further information). The fact that all the main states of Greece relied upon these massed formations of troops ensured that they all used the same tactics and strategy. These hoplite phalanxes needed level ground to be at their most effective, since hoplite tactics were totally directed towards breaking through the opposition’s phalanx by the sheer weight of a coordinated charge; if these shock tactics failed initially, then hand-to-hand fighting took place until one line broke and fled. Therefore the typical offensive strategy in Greece was to invade an enemy’s territory, begin to destroy the crops on their plain, and thus compel them to give battle or submit without fighting. The Persians, by contrast, had developed different tactics because their weaponry and style of fighting were designed to make best use of their Asian terrain, which was very broad and flat. Their success in battle rested mainly on their cavalry and archers, who had the mobility in an open plain to surround a phalanx and inflict devastating losses at its most vulnerable points, namely the flanks and the rear.
The land strategy of the Greeks, therefore, was shaped by this knowledge of the effectiveness of the Persian cavalry and archers, and by the Athenians’ success at the battle of Marathon in 490. The Athenians had shown that the hoplites, owing to their heavier defensive armour and longer thrusting spears, were superior to the Persian infantry in hand-to-hand fighting; and that a position, such as the small plain of Marathon which was overlooked by hills, protecting the flanks and rear of the hoplites, and which restricted the actual fighting area owing to the proximity of the sea, marshes and the hills, not only gave protection from cavalry attacks but also offered the opportunity of launching an effective counter-attack. Consequently, if the Greeks were to have any chance of winning a decisive land battle, they would need to find a similar battle location which combined a secure defensive position with the potential of quickly getting to grips with the Persian infantry. The alternative, purely defensive land strategy, still shaped by the same knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the Persian army, was to defend a narrow pass where the enemy could not deploy its superior numbers, and where the shock tactics of the hoplites would bring the Persian land advance to a halt, thus causing major problems for the sustenance of the army and hopefully leading to its withdrawal.
Greek naval strategy was also shaped by contemporary tactics in sea-battles and the nature of the Persian fleet. Although the Athenians advanc
ed the art of naval warfare in the second half of the fifth century by relying totally on ramming in the open sea, the main tactics which were employed by the Greeks and the Persians in 480 involved boarding an enemy’s ship, with or without ramming beforehand, with large numbers of heavily armed marines, who had been placed on the deck of the ship for this very purpose. This is the reason why Herodotus often mentions the capture, and not the sinking, of ships in his descriptions of the naval battles (e.g. 8.17). However, the Persians possessed a greater number of ships, superior speed and better manoeuvrability (8.10; 8.60). Therefore the Greek navy needed to fight in a narrow strait where the Persians’ larger force of ships would become a handicap and their superior seamanship would be given little or no chance to display itself. In addition, such a narrow and constricted space would be more advantageous to the bigger and heavier Greek ships, when ramming prow to prow, and the ensuing fighting between the marines, when boarding the enemy ships, would favour the more heavily armed Greek hoplites. Thus there was a marked similarity between the Greek land and naval strategy and tactics. The Greeks were soon to learn that, when faced with the joint operations of the Persian army and navy, they also needed to coordinate closely their land and naval strategy.
Tempe
The second meeting of the Hellenic League took place, as agreed, in the spring of 480 at the Isthmus. The news from their envoys was very discouraging: Argos, advised by the Delphic oracle not to join the Greek alliance, had demanded impossible conditions as the price for their joining, but in fact had already formed a pact with the Persians in which they agreed to remain neutral in the coming war (7.148–52); in the same way, Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, demanded the leadership of either the Greek army or navy as his precondition for sending military aid, which was not acceptable, but he too was willing to medize (7.157–63); Crete, upon the advice of Delphi which was conspicuously pro-Persian, refused to send any help; Corcyra agreed to send 60 ships, which failed to arrive for the battle of Salamis, allegedly held up by contrary winds, but there was suspicion that the Corcyraeans were playing a double game (7.169).
However, a delegation had also arrived from Thessaly with both an offer of and an appeal for help:
‘Men of Greece, it is necessary to guard the pass into Olympus in order that Thessaly and the whole of Greece might be sheltered from war. We are now ready to guard it with you, but you must also send a great army; if you do not send one, know well that we will come to terms with the Persians. For it is not right that we, acting alone as the defenders for the rest of Greece, should be destroyed on your behalf.’
(Herodotus 7.172.2)
This group of Thessalians who favoured the Greek cause were clearly in opposition to the Aleuadae of Larissa, who were referred to as ‘the Kings of Thessaly’ by Herodotus (7.6). The Aleuadae had already allied Thessaly with Persia, probably as early as 492 at the time of Mardonius’ expedition, when Persian control over Thrace and Macedon was re-established; certainly they had encouraged Xerxes to invade Greece (7.6) and were singled out by Xerxes for special praise (7.130). The Hellenic League’s desire to keep northern Greece inside the alliance and to have the services of the Thessalian cavalry shaped its strategy for the beginning of the campaigning season of 480. A force of 10,000 hoplites under the command of the Spartan Euaenetus, aided by the Athenian Themistocles, was sent by sea to Halos in the Gulf of Pagasae, and marched by land to the pass of Tempe. They remained here only for a few days before they retreated back to Halos and then sailed back to the Isthmus, thus bringing about the surrender of Thessaly and northern Greece to the Persians (7.173–74).
Such a swift and embarrassing reversal of military policy needs to be explained. Herodotus states that Alexander of Macedon persuaded the Greeks to abandon Tempe by stressing the magnitude of the Persian forces and the certain destruction of the Greek expeditionary force; but he records his own belief that the chief cause of the withdrawal was the fact that Tempe could be ‘turned’ (i.e. troops could be marched or ferried by ship to the other end of a pass, and thus trap the defending army in the pass itself) by the Persians using a pass to the west of Tempe (7.173–74). If Herodotus’ explanation is right, it does seem strange that this information was not known to the Hellenic League or that a small force was not sent first to reconnoitre the area. Furthermore, Xerxes’ forces were not due to arrive at Tempe for at least two months, which makes the early despatch of 10,000 men seem unnecessary. It is possible that such a show of military force was intended to strengthen the anti-Persian faction in Thessaly and to force the pro-Persian faction into line behind the Greek cause. If this was the case, then the Greek withdrawal was caused by the absence of Thessalian unity and the fear of treachery by the supporters of the Aleuadae, for it would be impossible to defend all four passes from Macedon into Thessaly without the united support of the Thessalians. It would also seem that the Greeks had not yet appreciated the need for a joint land and sea strategy, since there was no fleet in place to protect Tempe from being turned by sea. The loss of northern Greece now made the defence of central Greece a matter of the highest importance, at least to the states north of the Peloponnese.
Thermopylae and Artemisium
The Persian army and navy, after separating at Acanthus in Chalcidice, reunited at Therma. Xerxes and the army then marched ahead of the navy through Thessaly to the Malian Gulf; the Persian fleet set out eleven days later and sailed in a single day, according to Herodotus (7.183.2), to Magnesia where it anchored at Cape Sepias. It seems most unlikely that a huge fleet could sail between ninety and one hundred miles in a single day, and thus modern scholarship has convincingly argued that Herodotus does not give a clear, accurate timetable of this and some of the subsequent events. What is clear is that Xerxes was determined that the army and navy should work closely in tandem, and this necessitated the early advance of the army to secure safe anchorage on a friendly shore for the fleet.
After the return of the Greek forces from Tempe, it was decided by the Hellenic League, shaping its strategy to match the joint operations of the Persians, to send both the army and navy to the next line of defence:
The proposal that won the day was to guard the pass of Thermopylae. For it was narrower than the pass in Thessaly and only one [alternative translation: ‘at the same time’] and nearer to their homes. They did not know that there was a path, by means of which the Greeks who fell at Thermopylae were surrounded, until they came to Thermopylae and learned of its existence from the men of Trachis. Therefore they decided to guard this pass in order to prevent the foreigner from entering Greece, and to send the fleet to Artemisium in the territory of Histiaea, for these places, being near to each other, would provide easy communication between the two forces.
(Herodotus 7.175.1–2)
The aim of Greek strategy at Thermopylae and Artemisium has been much debated, but it would seem to have been based on defensive and offensive elements.
Thermopylae, if it was guarded by a sufficient number of troops, was virtually unassailable by a frontal attack, even with very superior numbers, and thus was a perfect defensive land position. The Persian army could not be defeated in such a position, but its advance could be held up indefinitely, causing severe problems for Xerxes in his need to feed his large force. Such a stalemate on the land would force the Persians to take the offensive at sea against the Greek fleet which, being less heavily outnumbered and fighting in its chosen location in order to make use of its own strengths and to negate those of the enemy, had the best chance of defeating or severely damaging the Persian navy. However, the two positions were totally interdependent, since defeat of either force would necessitate the withdrawal of the other. The fall of Thermopylae would allow the Persians to control the narrows of the strait of Euripus, which is only 40 yards wide at Chalcis, thus cutting off the Greek fleet’s line of retreat; and the abandonment of Artemisium would allow the Persian fleet to turn the Greek army’s position by sailing down the Euripus strait and landing t
roops in its rear. Although Artemisium is 40 sea miles from Thermopylae and does not provide easy communications, as stated by Herodotus, and was not as narrow and confined as the Greeks would have ideally wished, its strategic position was crucial. The risk of a flank attack from Artemisium prevented the Persian fleet from sailing into the Malian Gulf without first attempting to destroy the Greek fleet; and its occupation prevented the landing of Persian troops in the north of the island of Euboea, who could have marched to Chalcis and thus been in a position to turn Thermopylae and block the retreat of the Greek fleet.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 24