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

by Barry Strauss

  The men were exhausted and inflamed in turn, cowering or callous, scrappy or scared stiff. And no doubt some just kept on sitting on deck or rowing below, telling themselves that as long as they kept a grip on the wooden handle, they would hold on to their soundness of mind. Others might lose themselves in the group, buoyed up by the close contact of so many men in so small a space.

  After the Athenians broke through the Phoenician line in the narrows, the combat zone at Salamis began to resemble nothing so much as the battlefield of the Heroic Age. By the afternoon, the battle was a melee in which heavy Greek triremes hunted lighter Persian triremes fleeing from the straits, and a clot of fresh Persian triremes unknowingly blocked the exit.

  The battle devolved into a series of individual duels between Persian ships seeking safety and Greek ships seeking blood. The straits had become, as Herodotus says, a thorubos—using once again the Greek word for chaos, the same word he used to describe the panic of the Greek commanders on Salamis just two days earlier, when they learned that the Persians had taken the Athenian Acropolis.

  It was a terrible moment for the grand Persian fleet, the hour of its suffering. More Persians died in the confusion of ships coming and going than at any other time of the battle. Aeschylus writes:

  They all hastened in disorderly flight,

  Every ship in the barbarian force.

  And then they struck them with broken oars

  And the fragments of shipwrecks and

  They boned them like tuna or some catch of fish.

  Some of the Persians might have made it back to the mainland, but some swam to the Salamis shore, only to be killed by angry Greek soldiers. Many Persians died in the water. The Persians did not die alone, but they were lonely, “sojourners in a harsh land,” as Aeschylus puts it. They were “wretched with their struggling hands” before they drowned. And the last sight that some of them saw might have been the bronze of an enemy ram about to run them through on its way toward the side of another ship.

  Aminias’s path of glory had begun around seven o’clock that morning, when he ordered his crew to slam into a Phoenician trireme, which gave their captain the first kill of the day (or possibly the second, as the Aeginetans insisted). When Aminias and his crew next appeared in the battle record, the Persian fleet had collapsed. In that moment of confusion, Aminias homed in on his most extraordinary opponent yet: Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus.

  By noon in the straits, Artemisia was able to watch the disintegration of Xerxes’ fleet. Her Carian squadron was posted on the left wing of the Persian line, or rather, of what had been the Persian line. It was a critical moment and suddenly Artemisia saw Aminias’s trireme bear down on her ship. We might imagine the Athenian’s ram plowing through the scum of broken oars, shattered planks, and floating corpses, a froth of blood churned up by its passing.

  To understand what happened next, we have to appreciate the role of the forgotten man of ancient sea battle, the pilot. He stood on the quarterdeck and operated a pair of side rudders. These were actually oversize oars, each hung at a slant to the hull and each operated by a tiller. The ends of the two tillers were close enough together for the pilot, standing between them, to operate one with each hand. The Greeks called the rudder’s blade the “wing,” its loom the “neck,” and its tiller bar the “pole” or “shaft,” as in a vine prop or a spear. The size of a trireme or merchantman made the tiller bar look downright petite, which set philosophers thinking.

  “How is it,” asks an unknown writer whose works have come down with Aristotle’s, “that the rudder, although small and at the extreme end of the ship, has so much power that the great bulk of ships can be moved by a little tiller and one man?” The Roman-era Greek writer Lucian says of a huge grain ship named Isis that, despite its bulk, it was steered by “some little old man” employing “a delicate pole and turning the big rudders.”

  Using only his naked eye and the tillers, the pilot maneuvered his trireme out of harm’s way or toward the prey. Side rudders proved highly efficient: they could turn a ship quickly, tightly, and with a relatively small loss of speed. And yet, paradoxically, the pilot had to use the rudder as little as possible, since the more often the rudder was clear of the water, the less drag on the ship. During the run up to ramming, in particular, the rudder was best left disengaged. Knowing how to use the rudder effectively and minimally was in itself an art.

  Since he set the ship’s course, the pilot had to keep his ears cocked to the orders of the captain, who sat directly behind him in the stern. He had to be calm, quick, and uncomplaining. It is no exaggeration to say that the lives of everyone aboard depended on the keen sense and the cool hand of the pilot.

  When Aminias called out “Ram!,” his pilot would have turned the rudder as needed and then cleared it from the water. With every rapid beat of the trireme’s 170 oars, Artemisia’s doom came closer.

  But she had her own pilot to call on and her outstanding ingenuity. Artemisia ordered her pilot to take evasive action but of a kind that might have put Penelope to shame. That heroine of Greek epic said she would marry as soon as she finished weaving a shroud for an old man. But she undid her weaving every night in order to keep the suitors at bay and retain her loyalty to her missing husband, Odysseus. Artemisia undid her own work even more dramatically. She commanded her pilot to turn and ram one of her fellow Carian ships.

  She did not have the luxury of choice. Artemisia could not escape the straits, because the way was blocked by the pile-up of friendly ships, some in flight themselves, others still trying to make their way to the front in order to prove themselves beneath the Great King’s eyes. Nor could Artemisia go further into the straits, because the enemy ruled those waters, and she was in the thick of Greek ships. So she turned on her own men.

  The victim was the trireme of a local potentate, Damasithymus, king of Calynda, a Carian city southeast of Halicarnassus. As near neighbors, Queen Artemisia and King Damasithymus might well have been rivals. The two of them had quarreled at the Hellespont in May or June, and Herodotus speculates that Artemisia may still have carried a grudge in September. It occurs to him that since Artemisia had foreseen the Persian catastrophe at Salamis, she might even have planned the attack in advance. Then again, Damasithymus might merely have been the victim of bad luck, a man whose ship happened to be in Artemisia’s way. In any case, she gave the order, and Artemisia’s men rammed their ally’s ship and sank it.

  Damasithymus and his crew must have been shocked. Maybe their marines fought back by shooting arrows or hurling their javelins at Artemisia’s ship. Perhaps they merely went down cursing the traitor’s name.

  What followed was a double boon for the wily queen. Aminias saw Artemisia’s ship ram Damasithymus’s. So Aminias probably concluded that Artemisia’s ship was a friend after all, probably a Persian ship that had defected to the Greek side; otherwise, it would not have rammed a Persian trireme. He may have considered the possibility that his lookout had made a complete misidentification and that Artemisia’s was in fact a Greek ship. This mistake would have been understandable. After all, Halicarnassian marines wore Greek armor, and although there were Iranian and Sacae marines on Artemisia’s ship as well, in the confusion of battle, the Greek armor might have caught the lookout’s eye. In any case, Aminias decided to leave Artemisia alone. Aminias now ordered his pilot to change course and attack another ship instead.

  But Aminias had been tricked. He had not seen Artemisia herself, since she sat beneath an awning. Had he in fact recognized the queen, he would have risked everything in order to get her. Aminias would not have rested until either he captured her or he was captured himself. Like every Athenian captain, Aminias knew about the thousand-drachma reward for taking Artemisia alive, to say nothing of the honor of avenging Athenian manhood. So Aminias continued attacking enemy ships at Salamis that afternoon, but he had just missed the greatest prize of all.

  Artemisia escaped the wrath of Aminias, yet she still had Xerxes
to contend with. And that was the second part of the wages of her treachery. Far from being angry with Artemisia for ramming one of his ships, Xerxes thought more highly of her. It seems that he was tricked as well as the Athenians. From his throne on the hills above the straits, or so the story goes, Xerxes had been told that Artemisia’s trireme had rammed another ship. His courtiers identified Artemisia but mistook Damasithymus for an enemy. “Master,” they asked the Great King, “do you see how well Artemisia is fighting?” No doubt they were excited to have any good news to report.

  It had been a long morning for the King of Kings. We can imagine the usual hum of activity around the royal personage. Eunuchs would carry parasols to shade him from the sun, slaves would serve refreshments in gold tableware (tasted first, of course, by the royal taster), advisers like Ariaramnes and the ever-present Mardonius would comment on the battle below, runners would dash down to the shore to bring his commands to officers who might ferry them out to the fleet, and secretaries would record his every word. At first, everyone would no doubt praise the resilience of the Persian navy and its ability to turn the tables on the perfidious Greeks and their so-called ambush, itself a puerile attempt at the strategy that only a man of Persian sophistication could execute. But as the sun rose high above the straits, it became ever more difficult to hide the truth.

  And the truth was one thing that nobody wanted to tell the Great King. An incident from the days just before the battle illustrates the wariness of his courtiers. As the story goes, two Greek exiles at the Persian court, Demaratus of Sparta and Dicaeus of Athens, were in western Attica, among Persian troops who were devastating the countryside. No doubt they were guiding the looters when they saw a striking omen. A huge cloud of dust rose from the vicinity of Eleusis, accompanied by a loud noise. To Dicaeus, it sounded like the annual procession of the Eleusinian Mysteries, held at this season. He told his companion that the sign represented an omen of defeat for Xerxes. If the cloud drifted toward the Isthmus, his army would lose a battle; if it headed for Salamis, his navy would lose.

  “Shut up! Don’t tell this story to anyone,” replied Demaratus. “If these words reach the King, it’s you who will lose something—your head. Neither I nor any other person will be able to help you. Keep quiet and let the gods take care of the army.” As Demaratus spoke, the cloud drifted toward Salamis and the two men knew what disaster lay in store. But they said nothing until afterward, when Dicaeus and his descendants repeated the tale.

  Although Dicaeus’s story may be too good to be true, it relies on what was common knowledge: the fear of Xerxes among his own men. So as they watched disaster unfold beneath them at Salamis, the Great King’s men would have denied what their master’s eyes saw. They might have told Xerxes that his ships were merely regrouping for a devastating offensive. They might have pointed out the power of the squadrons that were ready to enter the straits and hurl themselves against an exhausted enemy. They might have speculated aloud about how they could send a messenger to Themistocles with an offer of a fat bribe—perhaps even now he was merely holding out for some such prize. If all else failed, they might have comforted Xerxes with the thought that men had died crying out the glory of his royal name.

  And they surely grasped at whatever straws were available. For one thing, they could have noted that one of Xerxes’ plans had worked out brilliantly, precisely as he had intended. Just as the king had said, his presence made the men fight better at Salamis than they had at Artemisium. Never mind that they were moved less by inspiration than by fear; they were moved nonetheless. And they were also moved by rivalry.

  The Phoenicians and Ionians were both subjects of Persia, but they had no love for each other. They were both naval powers; the Phoenicians were Xerxes’ favorite fleet, but the Ionians dearly wanted that status for themselves. Two things were necessary to get it: first-rate performance at sea and friends in high places. Nothing got done in Persia without a patron at court to grease the wheels. By the same token, the top courtiers all looked for clients to champion. Nothing gave a man prestige like having an eager foreigner pay him court. So each of Persia’s peoples had its patron at the palace and every Persian council meeting had its share of faction.

  Ariaramnes, the leader of the pro-Ionian group at the Persian court, no doubt pointed out to the Great King just how well the cities of that rich region were battling on behalf of their monarch. Very few of them paid attention to the propaganda of Themistocles to fight badly on purpose. On the contrary, the Ionians excelled at Salamis in the number of kills to their credit. “I have a list of many names of captains who captured Greek ships,” says Herodotus, although he refers to only two.

  They both came from the island of Samos, just off the coast of Anatolia. One was Theomestor son of Androdamas and the other was Phylakes son of Histiaeus. If the question of disloyalty to Greece troubled either man, he could have turned to his island’s history for comfort. Whatever virtues Samian moralists might have preached, fidelity was not one of them. In a world of opportunists, Samos stood out.

  For two generations, Samos had seesawed. In 525 B.C. the Samian tyrant Polycrates threatened to help Egypt against Persia. Then, around 517, Persia conquered Samos, evicted Polycrates, and replaced him with his brother Syloson, a loyal Persian client. Next, in 499 when the Ionians revolted against Persia, Samos joined the rebels. That is, they joined them at first: it was the Samian contingent on the Greek right wing at the naval battle of Lade in 494 B.C., sixty ships strong, that turned tail before the fight, thereby saving themselves but dooming the rebel cause.

  Theomestor could have justified what some saw as treason to Greece by calling it service to a higher cause: the greatness of empire. Or he might have contented himself with a lower cause: the rewards that a grateful Xerxes was likely to give him.

  As it turned out, Xerxes was short of heroes to bestow honors on after Salamis, and so the Samians had a claim on a grand prize. Theomestor was named tyrant of Samos. Phylakes was given a large estate and was named one of the Great King’s benefactors, or orosaggai, an elite corps.

  And then there was Artemisia. When his courtiers pointed out her great feat of ramming an enemy ship, Xerxes displayed a wise skepticism. “Is it really Artemisia?” he asked. Xerxes’ question shows that it was difficult to make out the details from where he sat. No wonder a Roman-era writer told a fabulous story about a serpent, with eyesight good enough to see for two miles, who sat with Xerxes under a golden plane tree and reported on Artemisia’s exploits below. The real Xerxes no doubt had sharp-eyed scouts in his service, and they insisted that they could clearly see the “distinguishing mark” on Artemisia’s ship.

  Conceivably, what they made out was the painted plaque on the prow with the ship’s name. Another possibility is that Artemisia’s ship was marked by something large and visible, like the ram in the shape of a boar’s snout used in Samian penteconters or the figureheads that might have decorated the prow of a Phoenician trireme. But in that case, Aminias should have recognized her ship as well.

  There is also a story that Artemisia had planned ahead and carried a set of Greek signal flags on board. When she decided to ram Damasithymus, she had her ship’s Persian flags replaced with Greek flags. But then both Aminias and Xerxes’ courtiers would have thought Artemisia’s ship was Greek, so this is no doubt a tall tale.

  Is it possible that Xerxes’ men knew perfectly well that Artemisia had rammed a Persian ship but they lied in order to give the Great King something to think about other than executing everyone around him? Ariaramnes, enemy of the Phoenicians, might have eagerly twisted the truth in order to have more evidence of Phoenician incompetence. We might even consider the chance of a prearranged conspiracy between him and Artemisia. But all of these possibilities are only speculation.

  However it was achieved, recognition by Xerxes was good news for the queen. Yet it would backfire if survivors from Damasithymus’s ship denounced her. Luckily for her, there were no survivors. This was a godse
nd for Artemisia, since rarely were all hands lost after a ship was rammed. The men usually had time to abandon ship. Except for the Persians and Medes, most of Damasithymus’s crew knew how to swim because they were islanders.

  Or was it luck? The 230 sailors on Damasithymus’s ship could not have died to the last man unless someone made an effort to kill them. That person might have been Artemisia. She had more than one motive for a massacre. Not only did she fear survivors telling tales and not only did she dislike Damasithymus: she needed to convince her Athenian pursuer that she was on his side. The best way to do so was to follow standard procedure, and that meant ordering her archers to shoot the Calyndian survivors. She might even have sent her marines onto Damasithymus’s deck as a boarding party.

  Artemisia surely had the nerve to order a bloodbath of her allies, but would her men have obeyed? They were probably so devoted to the queen that they would have stormed Xerxes’ throne if she had issued the command. Long before Salamis, Artemisia would have chosen the crew of her flagship with care and would have treated them with attention. Her Carian rowers and marines would have received high wages and an easygoing rowing master. The commander of her Iranian and Sacae marines would have been accorded a full measure of flattery from the queen.

  She would have taken to addressing each of them personally and telling them how she had known their fathers and would pray for the health of their sons. She would have accorded the best of them the honor of guarding her tent. She would have doled out dicta to her commanders with a Delphic inscrutability. She would have done nothing to discourage her men from picking fights with other crews for insulting them as followers of a female.