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Home , 493 BC, Battle of Salamis, Isthmus of Corinth, Saronic Gulf

The Naval : a fundamental example of Coalition Dr. Zisis Fotakis, Assistant Professor in Naval History, the Hellenic Naval Academy The Naval Battle of Salamis, Seminars 2020, Greek Community of Melbourne https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV2zOKRWsvw The Persian Wars constitute an early and prime example of coalition naval warfare, making their study indispensable for all students of history and strategy. This paper focuses on the influence of Coalition Naval Warfare upon History, as evidenced in the Battle of Salamis. Naval warfare has been important in European history because Europe is a peninsula. is located on the Mediterranean shoreline of Europe, which is sufficiently separated from the rest of the continental landmass by mountain chains. Much of the Mediterranean African coast is also guarded by the Sahara desert and the swamps of the upper Nile. At its western end, the inland opens into the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar. This relative geographic isolation of the Mediterranean enclave, saved it from major incursions until the last days of the Roman Empire, except for those made by the Persian Empire and its successors, the Parthian and the Sassanian kingdoms.1 The Persian Empire occupied the Near East and during the 6th century BC and was the first power to introduce the into its Navy during the reign of Kambusis. All major Mediterranean navies adopted the trireme shortly afterwards, because it was the most cost-efficient, speedy and manoueverable type of warship. It could also host a good number of Marines, since it possessed much wider battle deck than any other type of warship at the time. Thus, the trireme also served as the best platform for amphibious operations.2 The extension of Persian rule in Thrace, was not welcome in . An Athenian naval squadron was sent to Asia Minor to assist the Greeks of in their Revolt (499-493 BC) against . Darius, the Emperor of Persia, realized that his rule in Ionia could only be secured if he subjugated the Greek mainland. Therefore, he campaigned twice against Greece. The first Persian campaign against the Greek mainland took place in 492 B.C. It was not successful because half of the Persian fleet sunk off in northern Greece due to a summer storm.3 Two years later, in 490 B.C., Darius made his final attempt to subjugate Greece. This time, a modest Persian force crossed the Aegean in order to avoid sailing past the dangerous promontory of Mount Athos. It was soundly defeated in Marathon by the Athenians.4 A decade later (480 B.C.), young Xerxes, the successor to Darius, meticulously organized a third, much larger, Persian campaign against Greece. It was then that the Hellespont, the modern day , was bridged, and a canal was cut at the head of the peninsula of Mount Athos.5 Xerxes was able to march into Greece with a big army without devastating the landscapes through which he passed. To be sure, he could not maintain such a force for more than a few weeks in a land as poor in local food supplies as Greece. So, when a handful of Greek cities in the extreme south refused to submit, Xerxes had to withdraw a substantial part of his invading force, because he could not feed it over the winter.6

1 Starr, C. G., The Influence of Seapower on Ancient History (Oxford University Press: New York & Oxford, 1989), 7. 2 Murray, W., "Ancient Navies: An Overview", Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, vol. 1, 67 and de Souza, Ph. "Ancient Navies: Greece", Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, vol. 1, 70. 3 Rodgers, W. L., Greek and Roman Naval Warfare (Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, 1937), 13-14. Reynolds C.G., Command of the Sea. The History and Strategy of Maritime Empires (Morrow: Malabar FL, 1974), 35. Cuyler Young, T. Jr, "The consolidation of the empire and its limits of growth under Darius and Xerxes" in Bordman J. et al. (ed.), The Cambridge Ancient History. Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean, c. 525 to 479 B.C. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2006), 69. 4 Rodgers, op. cit., 15-27. Parker, G., Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1995), 15-16. Simpsas, M., Το Ναυτικό στην Ιστορία των Ελλήνων. Πλοία και Ναυτικά Γεγονότα στον Αρχαίο Κόσμο, (Service for Naval History: Athens, 2006), 182. [The Navy in the history of Hellenism. Ships and naval events in the Ancient World] 5 Rodgers, op. cit., 57. Hammond, N.G.L., "The Expedition of Xerxes" in Boardman, J., et. al. (ed.), Cambridge Ancient History: Persia, Greece, and the Western Mediterranean, c. 525 to 479 B.C. (Cambridge University Press: London, 1988), 526-40. 6 McNeill, W., The Pursuit of Power (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1982), 3. 1

The passage of Xerxes' army did not interrupt the flow of tax and rent payments in the regions through which it marched. Quite the contrary: it was the regular flow of such income, concentrated into storage magazines along the army's route of march, that immunized the local populations against destructive exposure to plunder. The mutual benefit of such a system of regulated exactions is obvious. The king and his army secured a surer supply of food and could march farther and arrive at the scene of battle in better condition than if they had stopped to plunder along the way. The peasant populations of Greece, likewise, by handing over a more or less fixed portion of their harvest to tax and rent collectors, escaped sporadic destitution and risk of starvation. However difficult it may have been to make such payments-and the condition of the peasantry in ancient empires can be assumed to have approached the minimum required for biological survival-the superior predictability and regularity of taxes and rents made Xerxes' system preferable [than that of any conquering armies in the past]. 7 Indeed, by this system and shrewd diplomacy, Xerxes secured the alliance or neutrality of most Greek city-states.

Unlike his father, he personally led a fleet of 1,200 warships and hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Greece, so as to ensure that his men would fight gallantly there.8 Realising the enormity of this force, Artabanus, Xerxes’ uncle, characteristically noted “So far as I know, there is not a harbour anywhere big enough to receive this fleet of ours and give it protection in the event of storms: and indeed there would have to be not merely one such harbour, but many—all along the coast by which you will sail. But there is not a single one.”9 The absence of large safe havens for the Persian fleet in Greece, resulted in many sinkings of its ships due to summer storms. On the opposite side of the Aegean, , an influential Athenian leader whose mother was Thracian, convinced his compatriots to build a fleet of two hundred , after this was made possible by the discovery of silver deposits in the Lavrion district of . This was an unprecedented number of triremes for a small, agricultural city like Athens, and laid the foundations for its gradual transformation to a thalassocracy.10 The naval arms race that started in Greece by Themistocles navy law of 483 provoked similar building programs in the Greek west, and, to some extent, Xerxes’s attack against Greece.11 The Athenian safeguard of the sea would help the Greek League to stem the Persian tide in 480-479 BC. This league included twenty two Greek city-states, chief of which were the important maritime powers of Athens, , , and , and the militarily strong . The great fleets of the Greek West did not join the naval forces of the Greek League because the Greeks of Sicily had to repel a Carthaginian attack then. Moreover, the great fleet of Corfu was unable to round Cape Malea against the Etesian winds to join the Greek fleet at Salamis. The army of the Greek League was small, numbering only 10,000 men in 480 B.C.. It was better armed and trained than the Persian army, and the Greek sailors were as skilled and trained, as the Phoenician crews that constituted the cream of the Persian navy. Unlike the Persian expeditionary force, the armed forces of the Greek League were nationally homogenous. On the other hand, the chain of command of the Persian expeditionary force was centralized and compared favorably with the de-centralised, cumbersome decision- making mechanism of the Greek League. The consequent Greek delays would permit the unhindered withdrawal from Greece of much of the Persian expeditionary force in the aftermath of the Salamis naval battle. Sparta led the Greek League both on land and at sea due to Corinthian and Aeginetan antagonism against Athens. King Alexander of Macedon the First, an ancestor of Alexander the Great, warned his Southern Greek compatriots, not to deploy the army of the Greek League at the Tempi Pass in Northern Greece, because Xerxes knew bypasses to it. Following this, the Greek Army was deployed at the pass of in central Greece. Eventually, the Persian Army broke through that Pass, having encircled the Spartan and Thespian contingents who fought heroically there, and fell in battle to the last man.

7 Ibid, 3-4. 8 Straus, B., The Battle of Salamis. The Naval Encounter that saved Greece and Western Civilization (Simon & Schuster: New York, 2004), 78-79. Simpsas, op. cit., 186. 9 Payne, L., The Sea and Civilization. A Maritime History of the World (Penguin, New York, 2015), 97. 10 Parker, op. cit, 25. Rodgers, op. cit., 59. Murray, op. cit., 67. 11 Wallinga, H.T., "Ancient Navies: Persia" Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, vol. 1, 79. 2

The fleet of the Greek League consisted of approximately 400 warships, and was first stationed in the vicinity of Cape in Northern . There it attempted to prevent the entry of the Persian fleet into the Gulf of Maliakos which could have turned the flank of the Greek line at Thermopylae. As a result, the Persian fleet suffered losses at the naval battle of Artemisium.12 In the aftermath of the , the Greek fleet sailed to Athens in order to evacuate its population to the islands of Salamis, Aegina and the region of Troizina in Peloponnesus. In the aftermath of this operation, the Athenian half of the Greek fleet witnessed the destruction of its homeland by the conquering Persians. Despite the foreign occupation of their city, the Athenians decided to fight on, like the modern Greek Navy did, when Greece was occupied by the Axis Powers during the Second World War.13 In spite of its importance, the naval battle of Salamis is one of the least documented sea battles in world history. , the Greek tragedian who lived through this memorable event, bequeathed a theatrical account of it. , whose mother was also not Greek, wrote about the naval battle of Salamis forty-four years after this had been fought. Moreover, Herodotus did not have access to Athenian or Persian state records, he only interviewed low-ranking veterans. The historians and Diodorus, wrote about the naval battle of Salamis long afterwards, and their accounts are marred by inaccuracies. Strabo and Pausanias provide only topographic information, while offers historical snapshots rather than a complete picture of the Salamis naval battle. The extremely limited primary sources regarding the battle of Salamis resulted in a rough and uncertain knowledge of the corresponding numerical strength of the rival fleets, the technical characteristics of their ships, the topography of the sea battle, the contemporary climatic conditions, etc. Conflicting testimonies about the actual deployment of the opposing fleets across the Salamis Straits oblige us to focus on the staff preparation for this naval battle.14 The destruction of Athens by the Persians was followed by a lively discussion amongst the leaders of the Greek League regarding the optimal locum for the next naval battle against the Persian Navy. Given that the next land battle between the Greeks and the Persians would have taken place at the , the Peloponnesian members of the Greek League proposed that the Greek fleet should sail to the Isthmus to support the Greek army. Fearing that the Greek fleet would disintegrate, if it left Salamis, Themistocles argued that it should stay there to protect Aegina and Megara from Persian occupation. The narrowness of the Straits of Salamis could also compensate for the numerical and speed inferiority of the Greek fleet vis-à-vis its Persian opponent, if the two fleets joined battle there. The Athenian triremes were probably heavier and slower than the Phoenician ones because they were primarily built with an eye against neighboring Aegina. As the Germans built heavy warships before the First World War in order to fight against the British fleet in the "narrow" North Sea, so the Athenians built heavy triremes that would be mainly useful for a naval battle in the small . The arguments of Themistocles did not have the desired effect because the Peloponnesian naval leaders feared encirclement by the Persian fleet and starvation in Salamis. It was also argued that the defense of Aegina and Megara could not be reinforced by the presence of the Greek fleet in the Gulf of . Themistocles managed to impose his views upon the Allied Council by threatening that the Athenians would abandon the Greek League and establish a new city state in Italy, if the Greek fleet left Salamis for the Isthmus of Corinth. Moreover, Themistocles tried secretly to convince Xerxes to attack the Greek fleet at Salamis.15 Xerxes had his own reasons for paying an attentive ear to the confidential proposals of Themistocles. In the course of a war council that took place in Faliro shortly before the naval battle of Salamis, the leadership of

12 Rodgers, op. cit., 60-76. Straus, op. cit., 78, 82, 84. Simpsas, op. cit., 200. Gardiner, R. (ed.), The Age of the Galley. Mediterranean oared vessels since pre-classical times (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1995), 213. 13 Lazenby, J.F., The Defense of Greece, 490-479 B.C. (Aris & Phillips: Warminster, 1993), 155. Phokas, D., Έκθεσις επί της Δράσεως του Β. Ναυτικού κατά τον Πόλεμον 1940-1944 (Service for Naval History: Athens, 1954) [Report on the Operations of the Greek Royal Navy during the War of 1940-1944]. 14 Straus, op. cit.,5-8, 138. Hignett, C., Xerxes’s Invasion of Greece (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1963), 230-231. Green, P., The Year of Salamis, 480-479 B.C. (Weidenfeld and Nicholson:London, 1970), 186. 15 Simpsas, op. cit., 193-195. Lazenby, op. cit., 158-162. Straus, op. cit., 83-89. Hignett, op. cit., 177-180. Marder, A., From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. I (Oxford University Press: London, 1965), 416, 419. 3 the Persian expeditionary forces decided to force a decisive naval battle upon the Greek League as soon as possible. The possibility of the outbreak of rebellions in the Persian empire had been ever increasing, and the impending deterioration of the autumn weather reinforced the spirit of the offensive in Persian circles. Overcoming the resistance of the Greek army at the Isthmus, necessitated the extension of Persian naval assistance to the Persian army. Indeed, the Persian army could not stay long at the Isthmus, unless it could be resupplied by sea. Leaving behind the Greek fleet in Salamis could have resulted in the disruption of the sea lines of communication between the Persian expeditionary force and the Persian Empire. Dividing the Persian fleet between Salamis and the Isthmus could have given the Greeks the opportunity to smash the Persians at sea. Unleashing a full blown attack against the Greek fleet in Salamis appeared to be the only viable answer to the pressing need of the Persians to disengage from Greece with honor. During the same war council, Artemisia, a Persian ally and Queen of the kingdom of in southern Asia Minor, argued that the major objective of the Persian campaign against Greece had been achieved, namely the conquest of Athens. Therefore, she advised Xerxes to avoid fighting at sea against the highly capable Greeks. Artemisia also held that a Persian attack upon the Greek army at the Isthmus would probably force the Greek naval squadrons out of the Salamis Straits and disperse them. She may well have believed that it had been the fall of Thermopylae which caused the Greek fleet to withdraw from Artemission, and hoped to repeat the process by threatening the Isthmus. The deep division of the Greeks regarding the best place for joining battle with the Persians, and the limited cereal stocks in Salamis would reinforce this tendency.16 Following her advice, Xerxes ordered a Persian army of 30,000 men to march towards the Isthmus at night, along the Attica coast, and opposite to the Greek naval encampment. These men were ordered to carry torches and sing marching songs as loudly as they could –causing more panic than anything else to the Greek naval camp in Salamis. A further and obvious task for the Persian advance corps was to cut the supply line of the Salamis naval camp from Megara. Remembering Artemission, where the Greeks had shown a tendency to fight late in the day, Xerxes also sent Persian squadrons to the Straits of Salamis, hoping to temp them out to fight. Even if there was not enough time for a decisive result, the Persian Fleet might still be able to inflict significant losses. Having failed to entice the Greeks out of their naval encampment, Xerxes ordered the Persian fleet to slip quietly into the Straits of Salamis during the night of the 28th September 480 BC. The length and difficulty of the journey of the rowers of the Persian fleet in the dark, the need to maintain near silence, the great number of ships involved, the twists and curves of the straits, the inevitable mistakes and confusion in any nighttime operation, exhausted these rowers.17 “On every ship, calloused hands ignored the friction of the oar; muscles that had not rested from the afternoon’s exertion pulled yet again. They did not even get a little sleep says Herodotus…. A commander who understood triremes would have thought twice before asking his men to go into battle so tired.”18 The battle started shortly after the entry of part of the Persian fleet into the Salamis Straits. The Greek naval leadership received early warning of the approaching Persians by the Athenian, and Panaetios of . The Greeks had ample time to make their final preparations for the naval battle. By contrast, the Persian ships within the Salamis Straits were hardly lined up and ready in battle order when the battle started.19 Neither the exact numbers nor the exact deployment of the opposing fleets have survived accurately. The Greek fleet still consisted of 400 warships and the Persian fleet had fallen to 600 to 700 warships. The Greek fleet was probably deployed along the coast of Salamis and the Persian fleet along the opposite coast of Attica. The right wing of the Greek line of battle was commanded by the Spartan Commander in Chief of the Greek fleet, Admiral Evryviades, and consisted of the naval squadrons of the Dorian city-states of Sparta, Corinth,

16 Straus, op. cit., 98-103. Hignett, op. cit., 178, 208. Lazenby, op. cit.,166. 17 Green, op. cit., 174-176, 180-186. Straus, op. cit., 139. Lazenby, op. cit.,165. 18 Straus, op. cit., 139. 19 Ibid. Simpsas, op. cit., 196-197. 4

Aegina and Megara. Opposite them, on the Persian line of battle, were naval squadrons from Ionia and the Kingdom of Caria. The center of the Greek battleline consisted of the naval squadrons of smaller Greek city states, and faced the triremes of the Kingdoms of , , and , which were under Persian overlordship. Finally, the left wing of the Greek battle line consisted of the Athenian fleet, and faced the Phoenician and Egyptian naval squadrons.20 The naval battle of Salamis begun early in the morning of the 29th of September 480 B.C.. Shortly after its beginning, the Greek warships retreated and were keenly pursued by the Persian fleet. As a result, the Persian ships offered unwittingly ample space for the Greek triremes to ram them. The Persian ships also entered the effective radius of the Salamis based Cretan archers who hitted them hard. Later the same morning, the weather became windy, thus obstructing the movements of the Phoenician triremes which were lighter than the Athenian ones. A common feature of trireme battle, which was observed in the Battle of Salamis, was the local nature of engagement. It was not unusual to win on one wing while losing on another. Eventually, the face-off of lines devolved into a melee.21 Indeed, on the right-hand side, the Ionians pressed hard the Lacedaemonians, the Corinthians and the Aeginetans. Such was the Ionian elan that, according to Herodotus, the squadron from Corinth deserted in fright but was summoned back to do its duty by a mysterious group of men who gave chase and caught up with it. The center of the Greek battle line pressed the corresponding Persian center, but the latter resisted bravely. On the left wing of the Greek battleline, which was commanded by Themistocles, the Phoenicians attempted to encircle the Athenians without success. By contrast, the Athenians excelled in ramming many enemy ships. They broke first the Phoenician battleline, pushed some Phoenician ships towards the coast of Attica, and forced the rest of them to retreat towards the enemy center. The Athenians then broke the center of the Persian battleline and turned against the left wing of the enemy battleline. The last and longest phase of the naval battle developed into a melee, ships from both sides dueling against each other until dusk fell. Duels were usually won by the Greeks, because of their superior situational awareness, seamanship and determination. The entire naval force of the Persians retreated disorderly, having suffered large material and human losses. These were also caused by crashes between the Persian ships, due to the overcrowding in the Straits of Salamis. Indeed, more Persians died in the confusion of ships coming and going than at any other time of the battle.22 According to the most reliable sources, the Persian fleet lost 200 triremes in the battle of Salamis and the Greek fleet only 40 triremes. Having lost its best ships, the Persian fleet remained numerically stronger than the Greek one. Xerxes eventually decided to entrust General with pursuing further the war on land in Greece. He then rushed back to Persia together with the major part of his expeditionary force. “The smell of defeat is contagious. To have kept these shattered squadrons at Phaleron, would have constituted an embarrassing reminder of his own personal humiliation.”23 Xerxes also feared lest the Greeks destroyed the Hellespont bridges, in order to cut him off from his Empire in Asia. Indeed, his father Darius had a similar experience, when he tried to cross back a bridge over the Danube in 513 B.C. 24 The naval battle of Salamis is the largest of the Antiquity, having a modern demographic equivalent of well over 20 million souls.25 It is also the bloodiest naval battle of the Antiquity. It recorded many more human losses than most sea battles of the 20th century, because the speed and manoeuverability of the trireme depended on the physicality of its rowers, who constituted an easy and obvious target for the enemy.26

20 Straus, op. cit., 145. Hignett, op. cit., 209- 210. Lazenby, op. cit., 186-189. Simpsas, op. cit., 195-197. 21 Straus, B., “Naval Battles and Sieges” in Sabin Ph., van Ween H. & Whitby M. (eds.) The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare: Greece the Hellenistic World and the Rise of Rome (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008), 232-233. 22 Straus, op. cit., 163- 164, 170-172, 179. Simpsas, op. cit., 198-199. Gardiner, op.cit., 122-123. 23 Straus, op. cit., 204. 24 Simpsas, op. cit., 200. Hammond, op. cit., 180. Straus, op. cit., 213 25 Straus, op. cit., 4. 26 Hammond, op. cit., 554. 5

The naval battle of Salamis did not end the Third Greek-Persian War. Its strategic importance resembles that of the battle of Stalingrad.27 The naval battle of Salamis shows that coalitions can be impressive force multipliers, despite their often convoluted decision-making process. It is also a telling reminder of the capacity of the Hellenic nation to work miracles against the strongest enemies, despite its small size and often divided polity. Unfortunately, “the better people in loved Marathon but turned up their noses at Salamis. Marathon was won by good solid middle class former soldiers, but Salamis was a peoples battle, fought by poor men who sat on the rowers bench”.28 Ιn the aftermath of the Battle of Salamis, the poor of Athens gained enormous influence and steady pay from the naval expansion, and they expected to be better represented in the politics of the city state. Athens gradually evolved into radical democracy. Philosophical conservatives such as and Aristotle saw the legacy of Salamis at the beginning of demagoguery, cultural degeneracy and erosion of infantry morale.29 Exactly the opposite was the case. The battle of Salamis constitutes the birthday of the Western Civilization. Between 480 B.C. and the outbreak of the in 431 B.C. Aeschylus, , , Aristophanes, Socrates, Iktinus, Callicrates, Phidias, Thoucydides and many more, lived and worked in Athens. Never again in world history, so many talented writers, scientists, and artists lived in such a small city, in such a short time. Victory at Salamis preserved Greek Freedom and paved the way for the great accomplishments of that still define the values and culture of the West.

27 Straus, op. cit., 240 28 Ibid., 142. 29 Parker, op.cit, 25. 6