Battle of Salamis 480 BC - A detailed account - The fight for Greece

Few battles stand so tall off of the pages of history as the epic clash at Salamis. Having swept aside King Leonidas and his 300, Xerxes, king of kings, is master of central and northern Greece. Informed by a slave that his enemies bicker and cower, he had ordered his fleet to surround this upstart folk. With sunrise at hand, the great king is well placed to survey the final destruction of resistance. Yet it's not a fragmented and chaotic withdrawal that greets his gaze, but a determined and brazen enemy fleet. The free Greek fleet has launched, not for flight, but for battle. The Straits of Salamis will redden with blood this day, as a great battle of history was about to break out. But the immortal story of King Leonidas has survived through both modern media and timeless works like the Louvre's own Leonidas at Thermopylae, a masterpiece influenced by Napoleon himself, and purchased in 1819 by none other than the king of France, Louis XVIII, for a remarkable 100,000 francs. 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And with Masterworks, you can easily get in on the excitement without needing millions of dollars or art expertise. You can get priority access to Masterworks today using the QR code on screen, my special link in the description, or at masterworks.art slash historymarch. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Investing involves risk. See important regulation aid disclosures at masterworks.com slash cd. Leonidas is dead. Xerxes, king of kings and victor of Thermopylae, had the Spartan king's head spitted on a pike before marching his vast army into Boeotia and Attica. His goal? To avenge the Athenian burning of the temple of Cybele in Sardis nearly two decades before. En route to evacuated Athens, the Persians sacked both Thespiae and Plataea, while sparing friendly Thebes. Most Greek residents of targeted settlements had the wisdom to evacuate, and the citizens of Athens had mostly done the same. However, upon reaching the city, Xerxes found the Acropolis defended. Quickly overwhelming its defenders, the Temple of Athena was burned. With Athens occupied and its citizens now exiled, the great king could now rightly claim that the burning in Sardis and his father's defeat at Marathon had been avenged. To Xerxes, however, perhaps only the shedding of his enemy's blood in battle would set the seal on his victory over the Hellenes. Ten years before, a mostly Athenian army had triumphed at Marathon. This first Persian invasion of Greece had been in response to Athenian involvement in the Ionian Revolt, a Greek rebellion at the western edge of Darius' vast empire that took several years to put down. Only Athens and Eritrea had aided their Greek cousins, and though quickly driven out of the conflict, Darius had not forgotten the slight. With the failure at Marathon, Xerxes, son of Darius, had inherited his father's ambitions for vengeance, and in 480 BC, the great king led his vast army across the Hellespont and into Greece. Only days before, the invaders had faced their first great test, a three-day baptism of fire courtesy of a Greek coalition army, led by King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans. Though incurring thousands of losses, Xerxes' horde had cleared the Thermopylae Pass. However, not all was done, as the Greeks were far from vanquished on land or on sea. As Leonidas and his men had fought to the last at Thermopylae, a separate but mutually supporting sea battle had been fought in the nearby Straits of Artemisium. Similarly holding back the Persian onslaught for three days, the fleet, under the nominal command of Euribides, decided on withdrawal after hearing of the fall of Leonidas and the remaining contingent of his army. At Salamis, a debate ensued over the best course of action. Though elected commander of the Greek naval forces, Euribides, as a Spartan navarch, was more of a compromise candidate, the better man to lead than an Athenian. Though Athens easily had the largest number of ships, the other Greek powers did not want the city to lead the fleet. Important leaders along with Euribides were the Athenian leader Themistocles and Adamantus of Corinth. Meanwhile, as events had proceeded elsewhere, tens of thousands of men had been building a wall across the isthmus of Corinth day and night, and in keeping with this defensive strategy, the mood was geared towards a sea battle near there in the more open waters. Themistocles, however, stated that given the disparity in numbers and the Persian superiority in speed and maneuverability, it made sense to provoke a naval confrontation in the more enclosed area of Salamis. He added that in both scenarios too they were defending the Peloponnese. Salamis was simply more winnable. Though certainly without a city as Adamantus scornfully observed, Themistocles shot back that without the Athenians' 200 vessels, the Greek fleet would be doomed. To concentrate minds further, Themistocles also made it known that if Salamis were abandoned, then he and the Athenians would set sail for Cyrus in Italy, leaving Hellas to its fate. This clearly convinced Euribides. However, in another clever piece of manipulation that Sun Tzu himself would have been proud of, Themistocles also ensured battle at Salamis by sending his child's tutor to Xerxes with a message, at least if Herodotus is to be believed on this point. Meanwhile, Xerxes had sent Mardonius among his captains to ask whether they should fight. Of all his advisors, only one, Artemisia, queen of Heliconassus, spoke out against battle at Salamis. Artemisia argued that the battle was pointless given Xerxes had already achieved what he came for, the occupation of Athens and much of Greece. Furthermore, she informed him that the enemy were short of supplies on Salamis and that if they were to strike out to the Peloponnese with the land army, the Greeks would surely split apart to defend their own cities. Finally, she played down the capabilities of the great king's fleet, arguing that the Greeks are superior on sea, while Xerxes' slaves or subjects, namely the Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians and Pamphylians, were completely useless. On learning of Artemisia's mind, far from executing her as some of her friends and enemies feared or hoped, she rose further in the great king's estimation. However, Xerxes still settled on the majority view. He believed that at Artemisium the fleet had performed poorly because he had been absent. At Salamis, with their king watching on, they would crush the smaller Greek fleet. Perhaps another influencing factor that sealed Xerxes' resolve was the messenger sent by Themistocles. Coming before Xerxes, the great king was told that the Greeks were close to splitting, with some imminently setting sail for home, while others were poised to backstab their allies. While seemingly fanciful, this story is not entirely implausible. It was certainly Persian practice to maintain a dialogue even with enemies during a campaign, thus always leaving open the possibility of achieving a bloodless triumph, or perhaps undermine the enemy's unity through well-placed bribery and threats. Perhaps then, Xerxes simply heard what he wanted to hear. With his mind set, Xerxes ordered the southern escape route in the Saronic Gulf to be closed, while a force of around 400 men were dispatched to occupy the island of Sertalia, this in anticipation of rescuing unfortunate allies from the sea, whilst also disposing of Greeks. In addition, Diodorus states that Xerxes sent the Egyptians to guard the western route away from Salamis, between its western end and Megara. Breaking through the blockade from Aegina, the ostracized and recalled Athenian Aristides, an enemy of Themistocles, joined the allies to inform them of their plight. In the event, even his news of this Persian noose tightening around their collective necks was not enough, and it would take a further captain, a certain Panaecius, commanding a crew of Athenian deserters, to confirm Aristides' information. Yet, whether they accepted it or not, whatever argument still raged on within the Greek camp, now their destinies were set. On the morrow, blood would indeed redden the straits of Salamis. The next morning revealed a do-or-die situation for the Greek fleet. Having beached their ships on the beaches of Pelukia and Ambalaki bays, the Greeks launched their vessels to face those of the Persians. The large Phoenician contingent had sailed into position during the night to face the Athenian fleet, whilst the Ionian ships took the Persian center, followed by Artemisia's ships, the Dorians and the Carians. Euribides and the Spartan vessels, if following usual convention, would have taken position on the right as the command contingent. However, it's also possible Euribides placed his own ships to the right of the largest group of Athenian vessels, giving himself a more central position of command. The placement of the allied vessels is not certain outside of the Athenian position, though the largest contributors included Corinth, Aegina and Megara, among others. Athens by far fielded the greatest number of ships, totalling around 200 that day, with the Corinthians next in line with 40. All told, the Greeks fought at Salamis with about 365 ships, though the exact total will likely never be truly known, and could have been slightly more. As for Xerxes' comparative behemoth of a fleet, this too is more slippery to pin down than at first appears. The exact number is usually given as 1207 ships. The two previous storms around the time of Artemisium had to have reduced the number a bit, though Herodotus maintains that Medizing Greeks recouped this number for the great king before Salamis. The Egyptian contingent numbered around 200 alone, and was supposedly guarding against any western escape attempt, so would not be involved in the action at Salamis. We know too that the Cypriot, Cilician, Hellespontine and other contingents had formed their blockade to the south too, which gives us a rough total of around 500 vessels facing the Greeks in the initial assault. Whatever the true numbers facing the Greeks, however, they were certainly outnumbered, though, now the clash had been focused within the Straits of Salamis, the Greek leaders hoped this numerical disparity would count for little. Xerxes, perhaps in an eager anticipation of an easy victory, had his throne placed to enjoy a panoramic view of the battle. Here, he could of his scribes note down no servants who had distinguished themselves, and who had not. Along the shore of Attica were lined the army, with some archers to Xerxes' right, a particularly dangerous prospect for any ships that passed close enough to them. The Greeks too had hoplites guarding the beaches of Sinasoura, Cape Vavari and Enchantress I. As for the Greeks, far from despondent masses of fleeing ships and men, the sight and sound that greeted Xerxes was the confident cheers and purposeful action of his enemies. The Greek ships, at around 2 miles in length and 2 ships deep, formed a curved line from the island of Enchantress I, anchoring their left flank to the tip of Sinasoura on their right. The Persian fleet had mirrored their foes, though with their larger host and at three ships deep, they closed in like a forest of death, poised to finally swallow free Hellas herself whole. As the leading vessels of each fleet closed in, the action would have begun with individual triremes maneuvering, the better to strike their chosen targets. With each Greek trireme housing 170 rowers, the average vessel could cruise at around 6-7 knots, with a sprinting speed of around 10. We can imagine individual triremes bursting out to strike at the side or stern quarter of their target, or perhaps more terrifyingly, in a head-on trajectory, in order to strike the bows or perhaps strip one side of their victim vessel of its oars. Once a vessel had rammed another, it took a little time to disentangle from the foe. Boarding was mostly a matter for the marines to settle. Though the rowing complement of a ship vastly outnumbered the fighting men aboard either Greek or Persian ships, they were largely out of sight and unarmed, which meant surrender or capture was usually down to the triarch and officers of the ship. With a standard crew numbering 16 men and officers, and with a strength of 10 hoplites and 4 archers, the Greeks had a decided advantage in their arms and armour during boarding actions, even if they were decidedly outnumbered on this score too. The standard fighting complement of a Persian vessel numbered a total of 44 men. Of course, Xerxes' warriors did not have it all their own way. The great king's decision to act immediately in the night to position his fleet must have drained the strength of his men, in comparison to the freshly awoken Greeks. Far from broken or divided, the Greeks too had been the mirror opposite and were fighting with the zeal that only men with their proverbial backs to the wall could muster. As the fighting intensified too, it became apparent that Xerxes' greater numbers were a definite hindrance rather than a virtue. The Phoenician ships were cramped to the extent that there was little room between them, the depth now at 4 or 5 ships in some places. The Persian left also only had a fraction of its power directly engaged, with the Ionians alone in the fighting initially, while the Carians and Dorians were bunched up behind. While specific details of the battle are scarce, we do know that by early afternoon, or perhaps the early hour's evening, the Persians had been pushed back from the straits of Salamis itself, though this must have been hard fought, as the Persian warriors, eager to avoid the wrath of their king, who watched menacingly on, did all they could. During this middle period of the fighting, given the claustrophobic context, it's clear most of the action would have been man to man, or as Thucydides called it, fought in the old-fashioned way. Themistocles generally held the Greeks in decent order, while the Persian vessels were disordered, cramped, and hence when a ship was rammed, there was little chance of quickly extracting from it. Devolving into a series of miniaturized land battles, these isolated struggles became one of brute strength and will, in many cases the outnumbered but better armed hoplites, overcoming their Persian counterparts, who fell or fled, some choosing a watery grave rather than the sting of a Greek spear or sword. Since most of Xerxes' men could not swim, such desperate men nearly always drowned. The breakthrough is hard to pinpoint and since we know they fought well, it's unlikely that the Corinthians, as Herodotus maintained, had fled prior to battle. Perhaps then it was around this time or before that the Corinthians struck the flank or rear of the Phoenicians from the north, or that one too many ships had been disabled or taken, with that one now anonymous disaster, precipitating a more general withdrawal of the leading ships, that itself then triggered the general chaos that came when meeting their comrades moving in from behind. Aeschylus' description is telling enough on its own, describing the Persians' numbers as their worst enemy. Their ships crashed into and battered each other, sometimes stripping a friendly ship of its oars, and thus leaving individual vessels open to isolation and attack from the more ordered Greek fleet. Aeschylus goes on, describing the Greeks as netting the Persians like tuna or a haul of fish, the chilling screams splitting the late September air, the groans echoing through the salty breeze. By afternoon, the Persian fleet had been rounded on two sides, the Corinthians and Athenians pressing in from the north and west into the Persian right, and the ships of and other Greek allies slicing at the Persians' underbelly from the waters around Sinasora. For Xerxes, sat grimly observing on his throne, Artemisia's words must've replayed in his head bitterly. Had he really had to fight the Greeks that day? Speaking of Artemisia, this warrior queen certainly earned her high praise in the eyes of the great king. Seeing the battle as lost, Artemisia's route of escape was blocked by allied ships, and with an Athenian trireme on her tail, she had to act fast. Ordering her crew to ram the friendly vessel of the king of Colindus, this tricked her pursuers, under Ammonias, into believing that she was either an ally or defector, and Ammonias instead set his sights on another enemy ship. Watching events from his seat on shore, Xerxes' scribes, unsure of the identity of Artemisia's victim, assumed she had disabled an enemy ship, causing Xerxes himself to exclaim that his men had become women and his women men. By early evening the straits of Salamis had been cleared of enemy vessels, and the concluding act of the conflict was for Aristides to gather a force of hoplites from their positions on Sinasora, and land on Cytalia to destroy the Persian garrison that was abandoned there. Though an undoubted Greek triumph, however, the allied fleet had still lost some 40 triremes themselves. Xerxes' losses were severer still, as though an estimated 200 vessels had been lost, the larger crews, most of whom could not swim, raised the death toll comparatively higher for the Persians. In addition, those ships that had survived also suffered damage in many cases. Still, though Xerxes had suffered a defeat, he most certainly still had the numbers on his side. Pure numbers alone, however, could not account for the collapse in morale, or the exhaustion of his men. Though his land army was intact and undefeated, the campaigning season was drawing to a close, and with the Greek fleet victorious and undaunted, the threat of being cut off from his empire was real. After consulting with both Mardonius and Artemisia, the King of Kings settled on withdrawal. Moving into Thessaly, Xerxes divided his army. The bulk of his force would accompany him back to Asia, while a substantial army remained to finish off the Greeks come spring. That Salamis may have not been perceived as such a massive setback as has been often reported, is perhaps evidenced in a story that takes place shortly before Xerxes' departure. Acting on instructions from the oracle at Delphi, the Spartans had dispatched an ambassador to Xerxes to demand recompense for the loss of Leonidas. Xerxes scornfully laughed at the request, taking his time to answer before gesturing to Mardonius at his side and saying that he would pay the compensation that Sparta desired. With this dark reply, both Sparta and its allies could have been in no doubt that the war had not been concluded at Salamis. Soon the sons of Hellas would have to fight on land, to extract full vengeance for Thermopylae, and to free themselves from the Persian threat, once and for all.