Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy (13 page)

History seemed to be repeating itself. Xerxes’ naval commanders had received just such a nocturnal message from the Greek turncoat at Artemisium. To their regret they had refused to believe the man, and so the Greeks had escaped. The Persians did not intend to make the same mistake twice. When told of the message, Xerxes agreed. He gave orders to prepare for an advance on Salamis the next evening. He also instructed his staff to have his chariot ready to convey him to the hilltop that looked down on Salamis. The king was convinced that his mariners would not have performed so poorly at Artemisium if he had been present to keep an eye on them. At Salamis he meant to watch the battle in person.

Next morning there was an earthquake. Xerxes, unshaken by the portent, ordered his fleet to sea. In battle array the Persians waited outside the strait, but no Greek ships ventured forth to answer the challenge. At midday the armada returned to the beach at Phaleron, and the crews climbed down the ladders to eat their dinners. Anticipating the movement into the strait that night, however, the rowers left their oars in place, looped tightly to the tholepins. At sunset Xerxes’ admirals called the men back to the ships.

The entire Persian fleet was to join in the unparalleled night maneuver. Some triremes would circle the southern coast of Salamis in order to block the narrow channel at the western end, near Megara. The main fleet, however, would row directly into the Salamis strait. Echoing his own command before he dispatched his fleet to Artemisium, Xerxes ordered that not one Greek rower or marine should escape. The men felt confident. As they settled into their places, the crews cheered one another on.

The Persian plan called for surrounding the Greeks under cover of darkness, either capturing or turning back any Greek ships that tried to break out into the open water. Dawn would find their fleet arrayed against the north shore of the Salamis channel, ready to pounce upon what promised to be a divided and disheartened Greek naval force. Thanks to Themistocles’ message, the Persians believed that the large Athenian contingent would desert their side. Victory seemed foreordained, as was only right when the Great King watched his subjects fight in person.

As the sunset faded in the western sky, only faint starlight illuminated the sea. The triremes moved slowly offshore and eased into line, three ships abreast. Knowing that they outnumbered the Greeks more than three to one, the commanders had decided that the main fleet would file into the strait in a triple formation. At midnight the moon soared up over the shoulder of Mount Hymettus, brilliantly attended by the planet Zeus, as the Greeks called Jupiter. The moon was four days past the full but still bright enough that the lookouts in the ships’ prows could guide the course of the triremes. The Phoenician ships that headed the three long files now began to row slowly westward. They rounded the curve of the Piraeus promontory, then passed the island of Psyttaleia to enter the Salamis channel. There was no more cheering. All were silent. In the wake of the Phoenicians came the rest of the fleet, an ever-rolling stream that flowed for miles along the Attic coast. Only the muffled beat of the oars and the glittering ripples of the wakes marked their passing.

The last to enter the strait, hours after the leaders, were the triremes of the Ionian Greeks, outnumbered in Xerxes’ fleet only by the Phoenicians. Most of the Ionian ships had come from the Greek cities of Asia Minor or the islands along the Asiatic coast. Only seventeen had been mustered from the Cyclades, the archipelago of rocky islands that dotted the Aegean Sea. In this squadron that brought up the rear of the mighty procession, one ship’s crew was fired with a desperate resolve. They were reluctant subjects of Xerxes from Tenos, an island east of Attica. The men from Tenos had privately agreed at this ultimate hour to desert the Great King and join the Greek side. They knew the odds; they knew what the Persians expected the morning to bring. Even so, the steersman swung his steering oars over and bent his course gently away from the steadily advancing column. The lone Tenian trireme then headed straight for the lights of the Greek camp at Salamis, and a few hours of honor and freedom before the end.

In the last hours of the night, transports ferried four hundred elite Persian troops, the pick of the army, across to Psyttaleia. The Athenians held this island to be sacred to the great god Pan, lord of goats, of wilderness, and of that irrational terror known as a “panic.” To the Persians it seemed no more than a strategic post for an auxiliary force. Should there be a battle, these soldiers would offer aid to any fellow warriors who fetched up on the island, and a quick death to shipwrecked Greeks.

The leading Phoenician triremes had by this time reached the point where the channel turns north toward Eleusis. As each set of three triremes reached its station, the ships swung around until their prows pointed toward the Salamis shore, a mile off and still invisible in the dark. The seemingly endless column in three files heading west was thus transformed into a compact battle line in three ranks facing south. The rear ranks were expected to reinforce the front line and prevent a
diek plous
on the part of the Greeks. Triremes could cruise by moonlight, but they could not attack. Lookouts and steersmen needed daylight to aim their ramming strikes and to distinguish friends from foes.

That night no one in the king’s armada was allowed to sleep. The Persians remained on the alert for any Greeks who might try to flee from Salamis. But the night wore away, and they saw no ships in motion but their own. Xerxes’ crews had already been rowing ceaselessly for hours. Even after they reached their stations, the cramped quarters within the triremes prevented any real rest for their weary limbs.

In the darkness before dawn Xerxes himself rode in his chariot to the knoll opposite Salamis harbor. The king’s servants had erected a seat for him on the crown of the hill. From this natural grandstand Salamis and the strait were spread out before him like a scene at a play. Members of the court surrounded him, and royal scribes were in attendance to record the day’s events. In his supreme confidence, the king had brought them along to write down the names of commanders who especially distinguished themselves in the course of destroying the Greek fleet.

As for the Greeks on the far side of the channel, their rowers and soldiers rested ashore through the night. It was a different story with the commanders. Themistocles still had no idea whether Sicinnus’ mission had succeeded. The possibility that the Persians would enter the strait, though known to Eurybiades, had been kept from the rank and file in the fleet. Confirmation came at last from an unexpected source. In the middle of the night Aristides (his ten-year ostracism cut short because of the crisis) arrived by boat from Aegina, bringing with him sacred images from the island. He had seen the Persian ships by moonlight as they entered the strait and had in fact almost been caught by the blockaders at the mouth of the channel. Aristides first took Themistocles aside to give him the news. He then joined the allied council and broke the news. Shortly afterward the trireme from Tenos arrived to confirm that the Greeks were surrounded. The Tenians could also recount all the Persians’ expectations for the day ahead.

After welcoming the Tenians and enrolling them in the alliance, the Greek leaders made a hasty battle plan. They decided to array their ships in a single line against the Salamis shore to prevent a Persian
diek plous
or
periplous,
just as they had done on the last day at Artemisium. The Greek trierarchs and steersmen would be instructed to keep good order in the line until gaps opened in the Persian formation. At that point they would use their rams to cripple as many enemy ships as possible. After that the outcome depended on the help of the gods. But thanks to Themistocles, the Greeks had already done everything possible to help themselves.

One last stinging disappointment awaited Themistocles. By order of Eurybiades, the post of honor on the right wing fell this time to the islanders of Aegina, bitter rivals of the Athenians, accompanied by the Spartans with the admiral’s flagship. From the Tenians’ report, the Greeks now knew that their right wing would face the Ionians at the eastern end of the battle line, nearest to the Piraeus and the mouth of the channel. The Athenian fleet was relegated to the left wing—indeed it would occupy the entire western half of the Greek line. Their principal antagonists would be the Phoenicians. Once the order of battle had been decided, the commanders dispersed to their own divisions to rouse the crews.

In the dawn light the fighting men assembled on the beach, clustering around their commanders for the inspirational speech that preceded every battle. Themistocles spoke to the Athenian trierarchs and marines, almost two thousand strong. That day, the nineteenth of Boedromion, was one of the holiest days in the Athenian calendar. If Xerxes had not driven them from their land, these men would have been making a fourteen-mile pilgrimage from Athens to the shrine of Demeter and her daughter at Eleusis. Sacrifices and mystical rituals would have ensured that a new harvest would grow from the dry seeds of the old; the pilgrims too underwent a life-changing rebirth of the spirit. It was not lawful to talk of these mysteries, but as Themistocles stood on the beach, he called on his fellow Athenians to think of the best that human nature and fortune could offer, and the worst. And he challenged them to take their destinies into their own hands that day and choose the best. Then he offered sacrifices for victory and sent them to their ships.

The triremes were already afloat, with only their sterns grounded in the shallows. The crews filed aboard and felt their way through the hulls until each man reached his own rowing thwart. The rowers of the lower tiers seemed enveloped in a well of darkness. As the side screens of tough hide were spread down the length of the rowing frames, the upper thranite tier too was blacked out. Fresh from Themistocles’ oration, the trierarchs and marines made their way to the forward decks above the rams. The mariners raised the ladders and anchors, the rowers pulled the first light strokes, and the ships began to move slowly away from shore.

The Persians were still as invisible to them as they were to the Persians. In any case, the rowers, now pulling away from Salamis with their backs to the enemy, would see nothing of the battle unless their ship was wrecked. The stars were fading as they left the shelter of the bays, though the channel still lay in shadow. Soon the light would be strong enough for the ships to burst out of their huddle and extend their battle line along the shore. As they waited, some of the marines began the war chant. Their song was the ancient paean that preceded every battle:
Ie, ie Paian! Ie, ie Paian!
“Hail, hail, healing Lord!” If by some miracle the Greeks were victorious that day, they would sing the paean again at battle’s end. The chant spread from ship to ship until the echoes came back from the hills, and the strait was filled with the sound of singing.

Amid the chanting, the trumpeter on the flagship turned the flaring bell of his instrument upchannel toward the distant Athenians. Lifting the bronze to his lips, he listened for the command from Eurybiades, who was waiting for daylight. At last the moment came when dawn spread right across the sky, and the lookouts could see the rocky coast. A deep breath, and—“Now!” from the admiral—the trumpet blew, and the Greek ships burst out into the open. At a sprint they raced along the Salamis shore. Frothing white water spurted from the oar banks at every stroke. For the first time the Persians saw them clearly. This was not the disorderly mob they had been led to expect. But Xerxes’ admirals did not hesitate. Each was desperately eager to shine in the eyes of the watching king. They too swept forward after the trumpet signal, the front line forging into the wide strip of unruffled water that still separated the two fleets.

Before the Persian onset could reach them, the Greeks broke off their dash along the shore and turned their rams toward the enemy. Then came the coxswains’ urgent orders for the crews to back their oar strokes and reverse the triremes away from the enemy and toward the rocky coast of Salamis. Up and down the line the steersmen adjusted their positions, each holding his trireme level with the ships on either side while leaving as little open water as possible astern. Beyond the onrushing enemy ships, the officers and marines could now see Xerxes enthroned in splendor on his hill.

The charge across the open channel broke the uniformity of the Persian front. As it neared Salamis, the line became ragged, toothed like a saw blade with gleaming bronze rams. Observing that one Phoenician ship had pulled clear of the rest, an Athenian trierarch named Ameinias ordered a ramming attack, the first action of the battle. His rowers dug their oars into the water, propelling Ameinias’ trireme out of the Greek line. At the last possible moment the steersman shifted his steering oars so that the ship veered into the oncoming Phoenician. The Athenian ram hit so hard that it smashed through the enemy hull and lopped off the entire stern section. Ameinias’ own ship was caught in the wreckage. The Athenians on either side surged forward to his aid, closing up their ranks, and battle was joined all along the line. Off to the east the Greek right wing engaged at the same time after an Aeginetan trireme struck an Ionian.

From his hilltop Xerxes found himself looking down on more than a thousand ships locked in a struggling mass that writhed like a monstrous snake along the Salamis shore. His fleet could not recover from the initial disorder of that first charge, when the fastest crews had outstripped the pack. Each commander was now fighting his own battle. In the narrow waters Xerxes’ ships did as much damage to one another as to the Greeks. Oar banks shattered, and rowers were thrown from their thwarts. There were even accidental rammings between ships of the armada. These collisions further weakened the Persian line. The two rear ranks feared that the king might accuse them of cowardice if they held back. Instead of maintaining open zones of water between the ranks, they pressed forward. Preoccupied with maintaining their own reputations, they gave no thought to the consequences for the forward line, now helplessly pinned against the Greek rams. Crippled triremes fought to back away and escape from the mayhem but found they could not avoid the Greeks. Gaps in the Persian line were multiplying, and the Greeks darted forward wherever they saw an opening.