Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy (12 page)

To the Persians, the story seemed incredible. Only a few hours earlier they had watched the defiant Greeks rowing back to Artemisium, diminished but still dangerous after three days of fighting. Their blazing campfires were still plainly visible. Greeks were notorious for tricks and deceit: the tale was likely to be a trap. Were the Greeks hoping to lure them away from the safe havens at Aphetai, or to exhaust their crews with a night spent at the oar? Ignorant of Xerxes’ breakthrough at Thermopylae and fearful of making a mistake, the Persian commanders put the Histiaean under guard and sent a few ships south to check the truth of his story. Dawn was in the sky by the time the scouts returned with their report. They had found Artemisium abandoned: the only sign of life was the untended fires.

Themistocles’ deception was now exposed, but it seemed too late to pack up camp, marshal the scattered armada, and give chase. Far from destroying the Greeks down to the last fire-signaler, the Persian naval commanders had let the entire fleet slip through their fingers. Even worse, their mistrust of the nocturnal visitor had cost them a last chance of victory. How, exactly, would Xerxes punish them? The grim possibilities ranged from demotion to decapitation. Determined to have something to show for the days spent on their own, the Persians took the fleet across to the northern shore of Euboea, captured the helpless town of Histiaea, and pillaged the surrounding countryside.

They were still collecting loot when a royal messenger from Thermopylae finally caught up with them. He brought an invitation from Xerxes to cross over to the mainland for a tour of the battlefield, so that they could witness the fate of those who resisted the Great King. The mariners enthusiastically accepted the invitation and commandeered every available boat for the crossing, since the triremes could not land in the muddy shallows off Thermopylae. At the Hot Gates they saw no Persian casualties, only the corpses of the massacred Spartans and other Greeks. The centerpiece of the bloody display was the head of King Leonidas. Luckily Xerxes was so elated by his victory that he took little notice of the fleet’s dubious performance. The battlefield tour cost the Persians a day, and more days passed as the king’s forces gathered momentum for their next target: Athens.

Xerxes’ leisurely advance gave the Greeks time to catch a second wind. In the few precious days between the retreat from Artemisium and the arrival of the Persians, Themistocles set out to complete the evacuation of Attica. The Spartan admiral Eurybiades granted permission for the Athenian ships to detach themselves from the main fleet. They proceeded to ferry the remainder of the populace across to Troezen and other places of refuge. In the end, out of tens of thousands, only about five hundred stubborn souls refused to leave their homes.

Themistocles’ original bill before Artemisium had called for leaving the temples on the Acropolis to the care of Athena and the other gods. Xerxes would have found only the priestesses and temple officials on the citadel, along with some poor citizens who were willing to take their chances behind that other “wooden wall,” the thorn hedge. Matters looked different after the disaster at Thermopylae. Themistocles decided that the priestesses and the ancient wooden statue of the goddess should also be moved to safety. To overcome the opposition of religious conservatives, he persuaded the guardian of the sacred snake on the Acropolis to announce that the snake had abandoned its lair—a sign that the gods had departed and all others should follow. When the evacuation was complete, the Athenian crews rowed back to rejoin the Greek fleet, well entrenched in a seemingly impregnable position within the Salamis channel.

The rugged island of Salamis, legendary home of the hero Ajax, had been conquered by Athenians more than a century earlier in that epic action involving a fleet of fishing boats and one thirty-oared galley. A long waterway stretched between the northern coast of Salamis and the mainland, and the eastern reach of this channel formed the strait of Salamis. The island’s principal port lay between two natural harbors at a dogleg bend within the strait. Here the Athenian elders had been presiding over the city’s government and treasury ever since the evacuation began. Here too the Greek fleet would await the arrival of the Persians. Now that the original defensive line at Artemisium and Thermopylae had fallen, the Greeks had drawn a new line across the heart of Greece. One end lay at the Isthmus of Corinth, where the Peloponnesian army was toiling to block Xerxes’ land forces with a newly erected wall. The other end lay in the Salamis strait. All land north of this line had been yielded to the Persians.

Most Greeks were inclined to criticize Themistocles’ strategy. They argued that the fleet should withdraw to the Isthmus of Corinth and the protection of the army. To them, the straits looked like a potential death trap for the Greeks. But in Themistocles’ eyes the strait was a watery version of Thermopylae, a constricted space where natural features could nullify the overwhelming Persian advantage in numbers. There was still a hole at the center of his vision, however, for in one crucial point Salamis differed from Thermopylae. King Leonidas had needed no stratagems to bring Xerxes to the Hot Gates: the narrow pass was the only entry to central Greece. No such compulsion would force the Persian navy into the Salamis strait, since the main sea route to southern Greece lay across the open waters of the Saronic Gulf. Somehow Themistocles would have to lure the Persian ships into the strait.

At summer’s end the Persian hordes finally reached Attica, pushing their way through the passes of Mount Cithaeron and spreading across the deserted countryside like a river in flood. They quickly captured the local residents who had dodged Themistocles’ evacuation decree and shipped them off to distant Samos as prisoners of war. Athens was Xerxes’ for the taking, except for the Acropolis. There an Athenian garrison held out behind the old palisade, now reinforced with other timbers. The garrison rejected the blandishments of the Athenian exiles when the latter came to the foot of the Acropolis and called on them to surrender. They likewise defied a hail of flaming arrows from the Persian archers and rolled big stones down on anyone who tried to scale the slopes. Nature had barricaded the Acropolis with sheer cliffs and supplied its defenders with a spring of fresh water deep in the rock. Stymied by their resistance, Xerxes postponed tackling either the Greek fleet at Salamis or the Greek army at the Isthmus. Instead he pitched his royal pavilion at Athens and settled down to a siege of the Acropolis.

Meanwhile on Salamis, Themistocles faced a new crisis. The common citizens of Athens, the twenty thousand thetes, were running short of money on this, their first campaign on behalf of their city. Themistocles’ expanded navy called for the enlistment of all citizens, rich or poor. The horsemen and hoplites were men of means, who could afford to buy their own provisions while on campaign. But after almost a month of naval service the poorer citizens had exhausted their scanty savings. The city had no funds to help them and no stockpiles of food to dole out to relieve the shortfall.

In this time of need the rich Athenians who sat on the ancient council of the Areopagus or “Hill of Ares” came to the rescue. The council included Themistocles, who like all former archons was a member for life. In answer to the navy’s need, the Areopagites contributed enough from their private funds to provide a stipend of eight silver drachmas for each thete among the rowing crews. The crisis was averted, and the aristocratic council of the Areopagus earned itself a fund of goodwill from the democratic citizens that would endure for a generation.

A few days before the autumnal equinox the Greeks at Salamis saw a column of black smoke rising from the direction of Athens. Xerxes’ assault had succeeded at last, and the temples on the Acropolis were being put to the torch. Vengeance was taken for the burning of Sardis, and Darius’ vow that he would “remember the Athenians” was at last fulfilled. Xerxes had done what his father had failed to do. In the three months that had passed since the Great King crossed the Hellespont into Europe, he had killed a Spartan king, conquered Athens, and added all of northern and central Greece to his empire. The expedition was already a success. At once royal couriers were dispatched to carry the glad tidings back to Susa.

At about the time that the Acropolis fell, the sky watchers and diviners among the Greek and Persian armies observed the star Arcturus in the east just before dawn, visible for the first time since the beginning of summer. The rising of Arcturus marked the end of the seafaring season in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Soon it would be time to draw boats and ships up on beaches and secure them against the winter storms. Should Xerxes miss the last of the fair days, his fleet would be weather-bound in Greece. He would then have more than a hundred thousand idle mariners eating their heads off at his expense for months. If his navy could not destroy the Greek fleet immediately, it would be better for the Great King to send his armada back across the Aegean to spend the winter in Asia. By spring the united Greek resistance at sea might well have disintegrated.

Though Xerxes could not know it, a violent conflict was already threatening to shatter the unity of the Greek fleet. As the days of waiting dragged on, the steady undertow of resistance to Themistocles’ strategy grew stronger. The Greeks were caught in the demoralizing position of sitting in full sight of an enemy that was concealed from them. A conical knoll on the mainland gave Persian scouts a bird’s-eye view of the Greeks’ every move. Xerxes’ fleet at Phaleron, on the other hand, was screened from Greek view by the heights of the Piraeus promontory at the eastern end of the strait.

When the Peloponnesian commanders saw the smoke from the Acropolis, they called for Eurybiades to abandon Salamis and fall back to the Isthmus while there was still time. The Spartan admiral called a council, and Themistocles impetuously began to argue against a withdrawal. The Corinthian leader angrily reminded him that at the games, runners who started too soon were beaten with rods. “Yes,” retorted Themistocles, “but those who start late do not win.” The Athenian then considered their odds of survival if they retreated. At the Isthmus, any naval battle would have to be fought in open water, where the huge Persian fleet could surround and destroy them. They were safer at Salamis. The strongest arm of the Greek resistance, Themistocles said, was the navy. And he reminded them again of the oracle of the Wooden Wall, which had named Salamis as a place of destiny.

To stop this impassioned flow of argument, the Corinthian commander declared that Themistocles should no longer be allowed to speak in the council. He was now a man without a country, a mere refugee. The insult goaded Themistocles to state, in the clearest terms, his belief in the Athenian navy. He told the Corinthian, a man named Adeimantus, that the Athenians had a greater city and a greater land than Corinth or any other Greek state as long as they had two hundred ships filled with their men. If the other Greeks abandoned Salamis, the Athenians would collect their families and voyage in their floating city to a new home in the west, far from Persians and Peloponnesians alike. Faced with this ultimatum, the allies agreed to stay where they were. Themistocles had won this skirmish, but time was running out. By what trick or contrivance could Xerxes be persuaded to fight in narrow waters that favored the Greeks? At last the great idea came. Themistocles shared it privately with the Spartan admiral and then, with his permission, put it into action.

Among Themistocles’ slaves was a daring and resourceful Greek named Sicinnus. His regular duties called for him to serve as pedagogue to the sons of the family, overseeing their education and leading them to and from their lessons. That night Themistocles put Sicinnus in a small boat and sent him down the channel to Phaleron, where the shore was crowded with the hundreds of triremes that Xerxes had brought to Attica. Sicinnus attracted the attention of some of the Persian naval officers and then called out the message that Themistocles had told him to deliver. The future of Athens, and possibly the freedom of Greece, depended upon how well Themistocles had judged Xerxes’ reaction.

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 B.C.

Sicinnus identified himself as a secret envoy from Themistocles, leader of the Athenians. His master was eager to win the Great King’s friendship, as the Athenians were about to be betrayed. On the following night, Sicinnus said, the other Greeks planned to withdraw from Salamis and row away to their own cities. Yet the king could still have his victory if he prevented the would-be runaways from escaping. The allies were quarreling among themselves. Some already favored submission to Xerxes. As soon as the Persian navy appeared at Salamis, the Athenians and other disaffected Greeks would change sides. It was of course a barefaced lie, but like all good lies it had the virtue of incorporating many elements of the truth. Without giving the Persians a chance to ask troublesome questions, Sicinnus slipped away as soon as he had delivered the message and returned to Salamis.