This great sea fight took place at the above date, between the fleet of
Xerxes and that of the allied Greeks.
Salamis is an island in the Gulf of Ægina, ten miles west of Athens.
Its modern name is Kolouri. It is of about thirty square miles surface;
mountainous, wooded, and very irregular in shape.
It was in the channel between it and the main land that the great
battle was fought.
Xerxes, in the flush of youth, wielding immense power, and having
boundless resources in men and money, determined to revenge upon the
Greeks the defeat of the Persians, so many of whom had fallen, ten
years before, at Marathon. After years of preparation, using all his
resources and enlisting tributary powers, he marched northward, in
all the pomp and circumstance of war, and laid a bridge of boats at
the Hellespont, over which it took seven days for his army to pass.
His fleet consisted of over 1200 fighting vessels and transports, and
carried 240,000 men.
Previous to the naval battle of which we are about to speak, he
lost four hundred of his galleys in a violent storm; but still his
fleet was immensely superior in number to that of the Greeks, who had
strained every nerve to get together the navies of their independent
States. Such leaders as Aristides and Themistocles formed a host in
themselves, while the independent Greeks were, man for man and ship for
ship, superior to the Persians and their allies. Of the Greek fleet
the Athenians composed the right wing; the Spartans the left, opposed
respectively to the Phenicians and the Ionians; while the Æginetans and
Corinthians, with others, formed the Greek reserve.
The day of the battle was a remarkably fair one, and we are told that,
as the sun rose, the Persians, with one accord (both on sea and land,
for there was a famous land battle as well on that day), prostrated
themselves in worship of the orb of day. This was one of the oldest
and greatest forms of worship ever known to man, and it still exists
among the Parsees. It must have been a grand sight; for 240,000 men, in
a thousand ships, and an immense force on the neighboring land, bowed
down at once, in adoration.
The Greeks, with the “canniness” which distinguished them in their
dealings with both gods and men, sacrificed to all the gods, and
especially to Zeus, or Jupiter, and to Poseidon, or Neptune.
Everything was ready for the contest on both sides. Arms, offensive
and defensive, were prepared. They were much the same as had been used
for ages, by the Egyptians and others. Grappling irons were placed
ready to fasten contending ships together; gangways or planks were
arranged to afford sure footing to the boarders, while heavy weights
were ready, triced up to the long yards, to be dropped upon the enemy’s
deck, crushing his rowers, and perhaps sinking the vessel. Catapults
and balistæ (the first throwing large darts and javelins, the second
immense rocks) were placed in order, like great guns of modern times.
Archers and slingers occupied the poops and forecastles; while, as
additional means of offence, the Rhodians carried long spars, fixed
obliquely to the prows of their galleys, and reaching beyond their
beaks, from which were suspended, by chains, large kettles, filled
with live coals and combustibles. A chain at the bottom capsized these
on the decks of the enemy, often setting them on fire. Greek fire,
inextinguishable by water, is supposed, by many, to have been used thus
early; while fire ships were certainly often employed.
Just as the Greeks had concluded their religious ceremonies, one of
their triremes, which had been sent in advance to reconnoitre the
Persian fleet, was seen returning, hotly pursued by the enemy.
An Athenian trireme, commanded by Ameinas, the brother of the poet
Æschylus, dashed forward to her assistance. Upon this Eurybiades, the
Greek admiral, seeing that everything was ready, gave the signal for
general attack, which was the display of a brightly burnished brazen
shield above his vessel. (This, and many other details may be found in
Herodotus, but space prevents their insertion here.)
As soon as the shield was displayed the Grecian trumpets sounded the
advance, which was made amid great enthusiasm, the mixed fleets, or
contingents, from every state and city, vying with each other as to who
should be first to strike the enemy. The right wing dashed forward,
followed by the whole line, all sweeping down upon the Persians, or
Barbarians, as the Greeks called them.
On this occasion the Greeks had a good cause, and were fighting to
save their country and its liberties. Undaunted by the numbers of the
opposing fleet, they bent to their long oars and came down in fine
style. The Athenians became engaged first, then the Æginetans, and then
the battle became general. The Greeks had the advantage of being in
rapid motion when they struck the Persian fleet, most of which had not,
at that critical moment, gathered way. The great effect of a mass in
motion is exemplified in the act of a river steamboat running at speed
into a wharf; the sharp, frail vessel is seldom much damaged, while
cutting deep into a mass of timber, iron and stone. Many of the Persian
vessels were sunk at once, and a great gap thereby made in their line.
This was filled from their immense reserve, but not until after great
panic and confusion, which contributed to the success of the Greeks.
The Persian Admiral commanding the left wing, seeing that it was
necessary to act promptly in order to effectually succor his people,
bore down at full speed upon the flagship of Themistocles, intending to
board her. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and the vessel of
Themistocles was soon in a terrible strait; but many Athenian galleys
hastened to his rescue, and the large and magnificent Persian galley
was sunk by repeated blows from the sharp beaks of the Greeks, while
Ariamenes, the Admiral, was previously slain and thrown overboard.
At this same moment the son of the great Darius, revered by all the
Asiatics, fell, pierced by a javelin, at which sight the Persians set
up a melancholy wailing cry, which the Greeks responded to with shouts
of triumph and derision.
Still, the Persians, strong in numbers, renewed and maintained the
battle with great fury; but the Athenian fleet cut through the
Phenician line, and then, pulling strong with starboard and backing
port oars, turned short round and fell upon the Persian left flank and
rear.
A universal panic now seized the Asiatics; and in spite of numbers,
they broke and fled in disorder--all, that is, except the Dorians, who,
led by their brave queen in person, fought for their new ally with
desperate valor, in the vain hope of restoring order where all order
was lost. The Dorian queen, Artemisia, at last forced to the conviction
that the fugitives were not to be rallied, and seeing the waters
covered with wreck, and strewn with the floating corpses of her friends
and allies, reluctantly gave the signal for retreat.
She was making off in her own galley, when she found herself closely
pursued by a Greek vessel, and, to divert his pursuit, as well as to
punish one who had behaved badly, she ran her galley full speed into
that of a Lycian commander, who had behaved in a cowardly manner during
the engagement. The Lycian sank instantly, and the Greek, upon seeing
this action, supposed that Artemisia’s galley was a friend, and at once
relinquished pursuit; so that this brave woman and able naval commander
succeeded in making her escape.
Ten thousand drachmas had been offered for her capture, and this,
of course, was lost. Ameinas, who had pursued her, was afterwards
named, by general suffrage, one of the “three valiants” who had most
distinguished themselves in the hard fought battle against such odds.
Polycritus and Eumenes were the two others.
The victory being complete at sea, Aristides, at the head of a large
body of Athenians, landed at a point where many of the Persians were.
The latter were divided from the main body of Xerxes’ army by a sheet
of water, and were slain, almost to a man, by the Greeks, under the
very eyes of the Persian monarch and his main army, who could not reach
them to afford assistance.
The discomfiture of his fleet rendered Xerxes powerless for the time;
and, recognizing the extent of the misfortune which had befallen him,
the mighty lord of so many nations, so many tributaries, and so many
slaves, rent his robes, and burst into a flood of tears.
Thus ended the great battle of Salamis, which decided the fate of
Greece.
The forces of the several independent Greek States returned to their
homes, where their arrival was celebrated with great rejoicing, and
sacrifices to the gods.
Xerxes, as soon as he realized the extent of the disaster which had
befallen him, resolved at once to return with all possible expedition
into Asia. His chief counsellor in vain advised him not to be downcast
by the defeat of his fleet: “that he had come to fight against the
Greeks, not with rafts of wood, but with soldiers and horses.” In spite
of this, Xerxes sent the remnant of his fleet to the harbors of Asia
Minor, and after a march of forty-five days, amidst great hardship and
privation, arrived at the Hellespont with his army. Famine, pestilence
and battle had reduced his army from a million or more to about 300,000.
The victory at Salamis terminated the second act of the great Persian
expedition. The third, in the following year, was the conclusive land
battle of Platæa, and subsequent operations. These secured not only the
freedom of Greece and of adjoining European States, but the freedom and
independence of the Asiatic Greeks, and their undisturbed possession of
the Asiatic coast--an inestimable prize to the victors.