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

by Barry Strauss

  “Pounded by the sea”: Sophocles, Ajax 598.

  Cynosura: On the identification, see J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C. (Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips, 1993), 177.

  Psyttaleia: For the identification of Psyttaleia with the modern Greek Lipsokoutali rather than St. George, see C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 397–402. Also see Lazenby, Defence of Greece, 179.

  “bulwark”: Homer, Iliad 3.226–229.

  public baths: See Pseudo-Demosthenes 50.34–35.

  “amounted to thirty tens”: Aeschylus, Persians 339–340

  “the eyesore of Piraeus”: Aristotle, Rhetoric 1411a.

  the great Athenian statesman Solon: His statue stood in Salamis in 345 B.C. (Aeschines, Against Timarchus 25), but since Solon was a great Athenian hero from the time of his archonship in 594 B.C., we may imagine it standing in 480 B.C. as well.

  Cyrus the Great: Hdt. 1.153.2.

  an Athenian messenger: I assume, following Agostino Masaracchia, Erodoto, La battaglia di Salamina: libro VIII delle Storie/Erodoto (Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, A. Mondadori, 1977), 183, that Hdt. 8.50 and 8.56 belong to one and the same message.

  thorubos: Hdt. 8.56.1.

  probably moored in Paloukia Bay: as Constantin N. Rados argues in La Bataille de Salamine (Paris: Fontemoing & Cie., 1915), 290.

  Mnesiphilus: Many doubt this anecdote because it drips venom against Themistocles (see Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion, 204). But even Themistocles needed help sometimes; besides, by heightening the drama, the story underlines Themistocles’ resilience. See C. W. Fornara, Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 72, n.19.

  where the Spartan fleet was probably moored: Rados, Bataille de Salamine, 290.

  “Of all the men we know”: Thucydides 5.105.4.

  “At the games”: Hdt. 8.59.

  “Strike but listen”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 11.3.

  “on the wide open sea”: Hdt. 8.60α.

  “Fighting a naval battle in the narrows”: Hdt. 8.60β.

  “What are you doing”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 11.5.

  “If you stay here”: Hdt. 8.62.1.

  “They had jousted with words”: Hdt. 8.64.1.

  CHAPTER FIVE: PHALERON

  sparkle with gold jewels: I imagine Artemisia wearing the jewelry found in the fourth century B.C. tomb of an elite woman of Halicarnassus, the so-called Carian Princess. See http://www.bodrum-museum.com/ depts/carian.htm.

  a story about her leaping to her death: reported by the second century A.D. writer Ptolemy Hephaestion, whose New History is summarized at Photius 190.

  “I did not lack for courage”: Herodotus 8.68.α1.

  “I must especially marvel”: Hdt. 7.99.1.

  “the king . . . of every country and every language”: a foundation tablet from Persepolis, cited in James E. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, 3rd. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 316–317.

  “only king to give orders to all other kings”: ibid.

  The day after he sacked the Acropolis: This is a guess, based on the assumption that Xerxes wanted to move quickly while the Greeks were terrified and depressed (Hdt. 8.56).

  “man’s will”: Hdt. 7.99.1.

  magnificent natural harbor: See Vitruvius 2.8.10–15, Strabo 13.1.59; Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead 24.

  Persian men proved themselves on the battlefield: Hdt. 3.136.

  “They were rather indignant”: Hdt. 8.93.2.

  Aristophanes: Lysistrata 675.

  rogues’ gallery of Persian enemies: This consisted of a series of statues at Sparta, including one of Artemisia. See Pausanias, Guide to Greece 3.11.3.

  the Phoenicians held the western end: as Constantin N. Rados argues in La Bataille de Salamine, (Paris: Fontemoing & Cie., 1915), 287–288, based on the arrangement of these squadrons in the battle of Salamis, Hdt. 8.85.

  wooden toolbox from a Byzantine ship: from the Yasi Ada wreck, now in the Bodrum Museum, Turkey.

  “Spare the ships”: Hdt. 8.68.α.

  “Good men have bad slaves”: Hdt. 8.68.γ.

  wooden palisades and walls of haphazardly piled stones: Intensive archaeological surveys of the Isthmus have found fortification walls of several different eras but not a trace of walls from 480 B.C., which is further evidence that what the Peloponnesians built then was flimsy and perishable. See Timothy E. Gregory, The Hexamilion and the Fortress (Princeton, N.J.: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1993).

  One expert modern estimate concludes: T. Cuyler Young, “480/479 B.C.—A Persian Perspective,” Iranica Antica 15 (1980): 229.

  build a bridge: See the excellent discussion in C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 415–417.

  “The further the Persian went into Greece”: Hdt. 8.66.2.

  “In my opinion, at any rate, the Persians were not less”: Hdt. 8.66.1.

  “it was all done by the god”: Hdt. 8.13.1.

  Presumably they took up their formations just outside the entrance: No ancient source tells us where the Persian fleet got into its battle formation, but if they had entered the channel, the Greeks would have rushed to their ships in alarm, and there is no record of that.

  The Greeks on Salamis saw the full force of the fleet: Cf. Hdt. 8.78.

  the terror of the Persian advance: Hdt. 8.71.1, 8.108.1. For the possible role of psychological warfare in Persian moves on the day before the battle of Salamis, see J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C. (Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips, 1993), 165–166.

  CHAPTER SIX: FROM SALAMIS TO PHALERON

  “the men who were wasting their time”: Ephorus, as reported by Diodorus Siculus 11.16.3.

  “land that had been captured by the spear”: Herodotus 8.74.2.

  “A Greek man from the Athenian host”: Aeschylus, Persians 355–360.

  “When he [Sicinnus] arrived”: Hdt. 8.75.2.

  “He [Themistocles] sent him [Sicinnus] to Xerxes secretly”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 12.4–5.

  the Persians let him go: See the argument by J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece 490–479 B.C. (Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips, 1993), 169–170.

  “guile of the Greek man”: Aeschylus, Persians 360–361. See the translation by Seth Benardete, “Greek guile,” in Aeschylus II. 2nd ed., The Complete Greek Tragedies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 61.

  “the middle of the night”: Hdt. 8.76.4.

  “quick, reckless, unscrupulous”: Plutarch, Life of Aristides 2.2.

  “the best and most just man”: Hdt. 8.79.1.

  “Aristides and Themistocles were the worst”: Polyaenus, Stratagems 1.30.8–32.2.

  “We are shut in by the enemy in a circle”: Hdt. 8.79.4.

  “The barbarian triremes”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 8.2.

  “You should know that the Medes”: Hdt. 8.80.1.

  “If I say it”: Hdt. 8.79.2.

  “shoving each other with their words”: Hdt. 8.78.1.

  “The entire camp of the Greeks is shut in”: Hdt. 8.81.1.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: FROM PHALERON TO SALAMIS

  Eshmunazar: or the monarch known as Tabnit. See David M. Lewis, “Persians in Herodotus,” in P. J. Rhodes, ed., Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 355.

  “great Sidon”: Joshua 11:8.

  “the mother of Canaan”: Françoise Briguel-Chatonnet and Eric Gubel, Les Phéniciens aux origins du Liban (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 72.

  “the first-born of Canaan”: Genesis 10:15, 19.

  “experience in naval deeds inherited from its ancestors”: Diodorus Siculus 11.18.1, referring to Phoenicians in general.

  Megabazus and Prexaspes: Megabazus may have held a hereditary position as “the admiral,” to judge from Persian documents, while Prexaspes’ father, Aspathines, appears as quiver-b
earer on Darius’s tomb and may have been the official in charge of Persepolis. See Lewis, “Persians in Herodotus,” 358–359.

  sh-l-m: See “Salamis,” in A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, eds., Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 20 (Stuttgart: A. Druckenmüller Verlag 1958, 1914): cols. 1826–1827.

  “to cut the Greeks off in Salamis”: Herodotus 8.76.2.

  120-plus-nautical-mile-per-day voyage: Thucydides 8.101. Cf. Xenophon, Anabasis 6.4.2.

  The Persian navy was: Aeschylus, Persians 74–75, 39–42, 52–55, 59–60.

  “On the long ships, rank encouraged rank”: Aeschylus, Persians 380–381.

  “Arrange the close array of ships”: Aeschylus, Persians 366–368.

  later historian: Diodorus Siculus 11.17.2.

  “was posted between Ceos and Cynosura”: Hdt. 8.76.2.

  “held the entire passage with its ships all the way to Munychia”: Hdt. 8.76.1.

  “encircling” the Greeks or “surrounding” them or “guarding”: Hdt. 8.76.1, 8.81.1.

  “But when they bridge with boats”: Hdt. 8.77.1.

  “They did everything in an undertone”: Hdt. 8.76.3.

  in 388 B.C.: Xenophon, Hellenica 5.1.5.

  “the Phoenicians . . . held the western wing”: Hdt. 8.85.1.

  “They didn’t get even a little sleep”: Hdt. 8.76.3.

  “The lords of the ships”: Aeschylus, Persians 382–383.

  Herodotus reports an anecdote: Hdt. 8.118.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: SALAMIS

  fishermen: On Salamis today, the fishermen still trade theories about the battle of Salamis in the coffeehouses. I speculate that their ancient counterparts grumbled about the loss of access to harbors.

  Themistocles’ itchy fingers: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 4.2, 24.4.

  pale and overweight: Plato, Republic 556d–e.

  gripes about rowing masters: Xenophon, Oeconomicus 21.3.

  “are not called slaves nor subjects of any man”: Aeschylus, Persians 242.

  the rowers turned to one another and shook hands: Lysias, Funeral Oration 2.37.

  lengthy inscription: Inscriptiones Graecae, 3rd ed., vol. I, no. 1032 = Inscriptiones Graecae, 2nd ed., vol. II, no. 1951.

  “the dark-eyed ships”: Aeschylus, Persians 559, Suppliants 773.

  “prow that looks at the way ahead”: Aeschylus, Suppliants 716–718.

  owl: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 12.1. Plutarch places the story the night before (i.e., September 23–24), but it is hard to see when Themistocles might be addressing many people from his deck on that night. Plutarch does not vouch for the truth of the story.

  Themistocles’ sacrifice: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 13.2, Life of Aristides 9.1.

  sunrise: On September 25 in Athens the sun rises at 7:15 A.M. and day breaks about an hour earlier, around 6:15 A.M.

  “All his words contrasted the better”: Herodotus 8.83.

  “finished his speech resoundingly”: Most scholars translate the Greek phrase simply as “he closed his speech,” but the verb used by Herodotus, kataplesso, is exceedingly strong.

  aura: My analysis is based on a consultation with Dr. Michael Petrakis, Director of the Institute for Environmental Research & Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens. See also J. Neumann, “The Sea and Land Breezes in the Classical Greek Literature,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 54 (1973): 6–8; Jamie Morton, The Role of the Physical Environment in Ancient Greek Seafaring (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 97–99.

  “a brisk breeze . . . from the sea”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 14.2.

  “rose high in their sterns, and had bulwarks”: “Bulwarks” is literally “high-roofed in regard to the decks,” which may refer to the bulwarks needed to protect the forty marines crowded on deck. Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 14.2.

  “they had light drafts and lay low in the water”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 14.2.

  “lord of the oar”: Aeschylus, Persians 378.

  “rich in hands and rich in rowers”: Aeschylus, Persians 84.

  “to join in battle with their triremes’ rams”: Aeschylus, Persians 336.

  “to shut out the invincible wave with sturdy walls”: Aeschylus, Persians 90.

  “The city of Athena will be rescued by the gods”: Aeschylus, Persians 347.

  CHAPTER NINE: SALAMIS STRAITS: MORNING

  Gobryas: a Persian noble, he was Ariabignes’ maternal grandfather and one of the seven conspirators who put Darius on the throne. See esp. Herodotus 3.78, 4.130–134, 7.97.

  “He had a seat”: Aeschylus, Persians 466–467.

  “come down on the enemy with thunder”: David G. Chandler, The Military Maxims of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan, 1997), 111–112.

  “a song-like shout”: Aeschylus, Persians 388–390.

  “holy cry”: Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 268–270.

  “All the barbarians”: Aeschylus, Persians 391–394.

  Aristides Quintilianus: Aristides Quintilianus, On Music 2.6; Homer, Iliad 21.388. A salpinx from fifth century B.C. Greece has been found: its cylinder consists of thirteen parts made of ivory, while its bell and mouthpiece are made of bronze.

  “the regular stroke of the rushing oars together”: Aeschylus, Persians 396.

  clearly visible to the Persians: As argued by J. F. Lazenby, The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C. (Warminster, Eng.: Aris & Phillips, 1993), 184, there is no need to put the Greeks around a bend in the channel merely because the Persians heard them before they saw them.

  Only a few minutes had passed: Things happened quickly, says Aeschylus, Persians 398.

  “When they [the Greeks] launched their ships”: Hdt. 8.83.2.

  “First the right wing”: Aeschylus, Persians 399–400.

  “bronze-rammed floating chariots”: Timotheus of Miletus, The Persians, as cited in A. Podlecki, The Life of Themistocles: A Critical Survey of the Literary and Archaeological Evidence (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1975), 63–64.

  “a mighty battle cry” . . . “O sons of the Greeks” . . . “the Persian tongue”: Aeschylus, Persians 401–407.

  He owned land and a house in Attica: For the points in this sentence, see the Themistocles Decree.

  from a standing start to nine or ten knots: Compare the results of the sea trials of Olympias from 1987 to 1992, keeping in mind that the speeds fall short of those apparently achieved in antiquity. See J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, and N. B. Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 262–264.

  Depending on whether: See J. T. Shaw, “Steering to Ram: The Diekplous and Periplous,” in J. T. Shaw, ed., The Trireme Project: Operational Experience 1987–90: Lessons Learnt, Oxbow Monograph No. 31 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1993), 100.

  “law of hands”: Hdt. 8.89.1.

  “Gentlemen, just how long”: Hdt. 8.84.2.

  “Greek ship”: Aeschylus, Persians 409.

  “a common problem in ancient warfare”: Thucydides 7.44.1.

  “wails, cries”: Thuc. 7.71.4.

  a great light: All these details are found in Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 15.1.

  “can say little precisely”: Hdt. 8.87.1.

  “at first the flood”: Aeschylus, Persians 412.

  “The barbarians . . . did not remain drawn up”: Hdt. 8.86.

  As an Athenian admiral put it later: Phormio, cited at Thuc. 2.87.

  “struck the barbarians’ ships”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 14.2.

  “the boat-wrecking breezes ( aurai )”: Timotheus of Miletus, Persians 791.132. My translation; see J. H. Hordern, ed., The Fragments of Timotheus of Miletus. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Timotheus also refers to “the swift and soaking aura,” ibid., 81.

  “was inflicted on one side”: Timotheus of Miletus, Persians 791.7-13. Trans. J. H. Hordern, ibid.

  a later story: Diodorus Siculus 11.19.4.


  unnamed Persian “admiral”: Diodorus Siculus 11.85.5.

  “Ariamenes”: Plutarch, Life of Themistocles 14.3.

  CHAPTER TEN: SALAMIS STRAITS: AFTERNOON

  “the utterly ruinous rams”: Aeschylus, Persians 562.

  “The arrow”: Aeschylus, Persians 278–279, cf. 269–271.

  “by the single sweep of the oar”: Aeschylus, Persians 976.

  situational awareness: Mike Spick, The Ace Factor: Air Combat & The Role of Situational Awareness (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1988), xii.

  “Nothing is true in tactics”: Commander Randy “Duke” Cunningham, U.S. Navy, Vietnam, as cited in Robert L. Shaw, Fighter Combat, Tactics and Maneuvering (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1985), x.

  Since his feet were fixed to the floor: In the absence of ancient evidence, this is only an assumption, but one based on the likelihood that rowers would go flying upon ramming unless their feet were fixed.

  thorubos: Herodotus 8.87.2.

  More Persians died: Hdt. 8.89.2

  “They all hastened”: Aeschylus, Persians 422–426.

  “sojourners in a harsh land”: Aeschylus, Persians 319.

  “wretched with their struggling hands”: Aeschylus, Persians 977.

  unknown writer: Pseudo-Aristotle, Mechanica 850b.

  Lucian: Navigation 6.

  “Master,” they asked the Great King: Hdt. 8.88.2.

  “Shut up! Don’t tell this story to anyone”: Hdt. 8.65.5–6.

  “I have a list of many names of captains”: Hdt. 8.85.2.

  “Is it really Artemisia?”: Hdt. 8.88.2.

  a fabulous story about a serpent: reported by the second century A.D. writer Ptolemy Hephaestion, whose New History is summarized at Photius 190.

  “distinguishing mark”: Hdt. 8.88.2.

  a set of Greek signal flags: Polyaenus, Stratagems 8.53.1, 3.

  “covers burning with fire”: Timotheus of Miletus, Persians 791.26–30. Trans. J. H. Hordern; J. H. Hordern, ed., The Fragments of Timotheus of Miletus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  “the strong and smoky fire”: Timotheus of Miletus, Persians 791.183–185. My translation. Timotheus is not a fully reliable source.