The Battle of Salamis by Barry Strauss

The recent controversy over the movie 300 has inspired recent interest in the battle of Thermopylae, which some call the battle that saved Greece from the Persians. Thermopylae was certainly an important battle, both in the way it delayed Xerxes’s advancing army and in the way it inspired those who came after, but Greece – and with it, perhaps, Western Civilization – was saved by two important sea battles. The Greeks first held their own against the much larger Persian fleet at Artemisium (which occurred while the Spartans were facing the Persians at Thermopylae), then routed the Persian fleet, beating back the invasion, at Salamis.

Salamis is a small island, just off the coast from Athens, noted prior to the battle as the home of the great hero of the Trojan War, Ajax. The Athenians evacuated their people there as Xerxes marched down the Attic peninsula to sack Athens. They also gathered their fleet there, in the tight bays of the island. This was actually important strategically. The Greek triremes were heaver than those used by the Phoenicians and others in Xerxes’s navy, and thus were at an advantage where brute strength – specifically, ramming power – was more important than maneuverability. And it was in this area around Salamis, with a fleet that was still considerably outnumbered their adversaries, that the Greek’s won a navy battle as decisive as such later historical battles as Trafalgar.

Xerxes had entered Greece with much pomp – intending what today would probably be called shock and awe. His engineered created a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont, and he marched his massive army across. At the same time, his fleet – consisting of Phoenicians, Egyptians, and others under Persian rule – was made up of over 1000 triremes. His army, while delayed by the Spartan-led forces at Thermopylae, broke threw and marched into Attica, intent on destroying Athens (Athens “disloyalty” was the pretext for the war). His fleet, while much reduced by the battle of Artemisium, was still larger than the Greek fleet. His troops reached Athens, then burned it, while the Athenians watched from across the harbor at Salamis. Meanwhile, the Persian fleet gathered in Phaleron Bay, outside of Athens.

On Salamis, the Greek’s debated what to do. Many of the Greeks wanted to give up Athens as lost and move the fleet to the Corinthian isthmus and the army to the Peloponnesian peninsula. Though the Athenians had by far the largest contingent in the Greek fleet (about 180 of the 300 or so ships), the admiral of the fleet was Spartan, since the Athenians had agreed, as part of the political settlement that put together the alliance, to let the Spartans rule in war. Yet the real brains of the fleet was the Athenian Themistocles, who urged a naval battle at Salamis.

He lost the argument the day before the battle, and the Greeks were going to pull out. But Themistocles secretly sent his chief slave to the Persian camp, to report that the Greeks were going to flee under cover of darkness and thus escape the Persians. This caused the Persians to blockade Salamis, precipitating the battle.

The battle itself was chaotic – as perhaps all battles are – but the Greeks prevailed for a variety of reasons. One I mentioned earlier: their heavier ships were better in the confined spaces and wind conditions in the area of Salamis. But there were also several other factors – force multipliers, to use a term of military analysis that Strauss also uses. They were fighting for their homes and for freedom (freedom in this case meaning freedom of the Greek city states to decide their own destinies, not individual freedom, though the latter did factor in for the Athenians), while the Persians were fighting under orders from the Great King. This resulted in a mixture of fear (Xerxes could execute those who displeased him) combined with jockeying to impress the king. Moreover, in the Persian fleet, initiative was discouraged; amongst many of the Greeks, it was prized. Again, under the chaotic conditions of the battle, the Greeks combination of discipline, motive, and initiative saw them through.

One of the more interesting characters of the conflict was Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, a Greek city that was under the rule of Persia. (More Greeks may have fought on the Persian side during the war than the nominal Greek (Athenian/Spartan) side.) She was the only woman in the battle, at a time when woman were very much looked down upon. Yet she was also trusted by Xerxes and gave him sound advice (which was ignored) before the battle. During the battle, her ship came close to being rammed, but she turned and rammed one of her own allies – thus tricking the advancing Greek ship into believing that she must be on the Greek side. She survived, and the trick even fooled Xerxes, who thought she must have attacked a Greek ship and honored her as one of the few successful captains on the Persian side of the battle.

The Persians were so dismayed by the result of the battle that they essentially stopped using their navy. Fighting went on for a year, but the remaining Persian fleet huddled near the Anatolian coast. They were apparently convinced that the Greek’s – who did not pursue them immediately after Salamis – would not cross the Aegean to attack. They were wrong: the Greeks did cross in 479 BC, and the Persians beached their ships to fight on land – a fight they also then lost. The Greeks burned the beached ships.

Strauss sums up the Persians huge mistake – both before and after Salamis:

On top of everything else, Xerxes underestimated democracy. He understood neither its ferocity nor its ability to learn from its mistakes. The day after Salamis, Xerxes’ nightmare was pursuit to the Hellespont by a Greek fleet. A year later, he no longer considered that likely. Surely, he reasoned, if the Athenians had not sailed to Anatolia in their moment of triumph after Salamis, they would not do so in 479 BC, after proving unable to defend Attica from a second invasion. The autocrat had no conception of the power of a people in arms who had been provoked.

Strauss does a very good job of describing the lead-up to the battle, the battle itself, and its aftermath. He gives enough background for someone who only knows a bit of Greek history, but enough detail to make the story real and compelling. It’s a difficult balancing act, but he pulls it off. He deftly balances expert historical knowledge, attention to detail, and understanding of what the audience of a good popular history – one that’s intelligent but not made up of scholars in the area in question – need to know. This is a very good history, and highly recommended.