In the battle of salamis, the Greeks inflicted a crushing naval defeat on the invaders and preserved the flower of Western culture By land and by sea, the great Persian king Xerxes moved with enormous forces against the Greek city states, primarily Athens and Sparta. At Thermopylae, barely 300 Spartan hoplites sacrificed themselves to buy precious time.
Data of the Battle of Salamis
- Who is it: A combined Greek naval force under the command of the Athenian Themistocles, 300 triremes in number, opposed 400 Persian triremes commanded by various admirals while Xerxes (d. 486 BC) watched from a nearby prominence seated on a golden throne.
- As: The Persian fleet was crushed and fled in disorder after being lured into shallow water. surrounded and attacked by the rams of the Greek ships.
- Where: In the Saronic Gulf, near the island of Salamis, west of modern Athens (Greece).
- When: September 20, 480 BC
- Because: The great Persian king Xerxes wanted to avenge his father’s defeat. Darío, in Marathon a decade earlier and expand his empire to Europe.
- Result: The Persians suffered heavy losses and were forced to withdraw. The Greek civilization was preserved and continued to prosper.
Background
During the fifth century BC, the vast Persian Empire was at the height of its glory. The kingdom of King Darius I stretched from the Caucasus to the Indian Ocean and from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, and among his subjects there was a great diversity of peoples. Among them were the Ionian Greeks, who had colonized the west coast of Asia Minor. In 500 BC the Ionians rose in rebellion against Darius. They were defeated after six years of bitter confrontation. The people of Athens had recognized their ancestral ties to the Ionians and burned down the Persian city of Sardis. In 491 BC Darius tried to punish the Athenians for their meddling in what he considered an internal affair. His punitive expedition, however, met with disaster on the Marathon plain. Forced to drain the bitter cup of failure. Darío died after a reign of 36 years, without quenching his thirst for revenge.
Enter Xerxes
King Xerxes I
When Xerxes, the son of Darius, ascended the throne of Persia, he did not initially embrace his father’s desire for revenge. However, after putting down a revolt in Egypt, he gathered his advisers to discuss another military move against Athens. -As you have seen, Darius himself was making preparations for war against these men. But his death prevented her from carrying out his plans, Xerxes said. Therefore, I, in his name and for the benefit of all my subjects, will not rest until I have taken Athens and burned and razed it to the ground… If we crush the Athenians and their Peloponnesian neighbors, we will expand the empire of Persia so much that its borders they will be the very heaven of God.
In 482 BC a rich vein of silver had been discovered in the mines of Laurium, near Athens. During the heated debate surrounding the highest and best use of newfound wealth, Themistocles’ voice was raised. Athens was to expand its navy to counter the threat of a Persian invasion. Themistocles had no doubt reckoned that the Persians would need large numbers of ships to carry the war supplies if they ever approached Greece again. He was also aware of the combat proficiency of the heavily armed Spartan hoplites on land.
The bell
The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Persian army numbered five million men and that it dried up the rivers when it drank as it passed. A more realistic number would be around 500,000. The Persian fleet is said to have consisted of 1,207 triremes, so called because the ships were propelled by oarsmen in three rows. Early in the campaign, the Persians accomplished a couple of great engineering feats.. They built a bridge with two eyes over the Hellespont, today called the Dardanelles, about 1,300 meters long. When a storm destroyed the first bridges, two more were built in their place. The Persians also spent three years digging a 2.4 km wide canal to cross an isthmus next to Mount Athos. Finally, 10 long years after their humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon, the Persian army was on the march again towards Greece. A series of Greek cities swore allegiance to Xerxes as his irresistible force moved inexorably toward them. Athens and Sparta, however, remained defiant, with everything against them.
The Battle of Thermopylae
On August 18 the Persian advance reached the pass of Thermopylae, through which the forces had to pass to reach Athens. The Persians lined up in front of the pass, which was barely 15 meters wide and defended by 6,000 Spartan hoplites under the command of their king, Leonidas. Time and time again, the Persians charged the Spartans, and were always repulsed with heavy losses. Not even the Immortals, the elite of the Persian armywell known for their daring and impetus, managed to win Thermopylae (which translates as hot springs pass).
Some of the soldiers who were with Leonidas departed, and there is still controversy as to whether the king dismissed them with contempt or withdrew them to fight another time. Whatever the truth, the end was near for the 300 Spartans remaining on the third day of fighting at Thermopylae. A Greek traitor named Ephialtes he showed the Persians an alternative route over the mountains, which would allow them to attack the Spartans from the rear. Herodotus wrote that he would keep in memory the names of the 300 Spartans who stood firm. because they deserved to be remembered.
When a Spartan was told that the Persians were going to shoot so many arrows that they would darken the sky, he replied: What good news… because if the Persians hide the sun, we can fight in the shade. Dead to the last man, the Spartans claimed the lives of two of Xerxes’ brothers. Years after the battle a plaque was raised to commemorate the resistance of Leonidas and his men. He prayed: Friend, announce to the Lacedaemonians that here we lie, submissive to their law. The heroic Spartans at Thermopylae did not sacrifice in vain. Their resistance cost the Persians precious time, and a pair of violent storms sank more than 200 Persian ships. Themistocles, meanwhile, had led the Greek fleet to victory in the Gulf of Pagas and at Artemisium. When he received the news that the Persians had taken Thermopylae, Themistocles withdrew his fleet to the island of Salamis, which offered a safe harbor.
persian immortals
delay and deceit
By the time the Persian army reached Athens, most of the citizenry had fled. Those who did not were put to the knife. The city, including the Acropolis, was looted and burned. To win a decisive victory, Xerxes had to defeat the Greek army on land. To do this, his triremes had to be able to maneuver safely. Therefore, a victory over the Greek fleet became an immediate necessity. As Themistocles had predicted years before, the decisive battle in the life of Athens, and indeed all of Greece, would take place at sea.
As Xerxes approached the narrow isthmus connecting northern Greece with the Peloponnese, the Spartans and other Peloponnesians built a wall and other defensive positions. Themistocles then demonstrated his true military genius by sending a slave named Sicinus to Xerxes with false information. Sicino informed Xerxes that there were dissensions among the Greek allies and noted that the morale of the Greek forces was waning. In fact, he claimed that the Greek commander himself was a supporter of Xerxes and wanted a resounding Persian victory. Preventing the flight of the disorganized Greeks would guarantee victory. Xerxes took the bait and weakened his forces by sending a squadron of Egyptian ships to cover possible escape routes.
greek trireme
Provisions
Xerxes planned to simply crush the 300 Greek triremes, which were opposing his force of 400 ships in the narrow waters around Salamis. Themistocles, on the other hand, had other ideas. He deployed his fleet with the Athenians and Corinthians on the left, the Aeginetans and Spartans on the right, hoping to lure the Persians into the shallow, narrow waters near the Bay of Eleusis. As the Persians approached, most of the Greek triremes would be hidden from them by a nearby island. In order to lure the Persians to their doom, Themistocles would order the 50 Corinthian triremes under his command to set sail and feign retreat.
Persian triremes, built to fight on the open sea, would be nearly unable to maneuver in the straits. They were heavier than the Greeks and towered higher above the water, while carrying up to 30 archers, as opposed to 14 aboard the Greek ships.
The Battle of Salamis
On the morning of September 20, 480 BC, Xerxes ascended to a golden throne in the highlands above Salamis. It is claimed that the Greek oarsmen were singing a hymn to the god Apollo when they attacked the Persian vanguard, widely scattered in pursuit of the supposedly fleeing Corinthians. When the captains of the leading Persian ships realized that they had fallen into a trap, they ordered a turnaround. However, the ships behind them had nowhere to go, throwing the fleet into disarray. The superior numbers of the Persians had now become a liability rather than an asset.
A line of Greek triremes maneuvered neatly to encircle the bewildered enemy, their bronze rams inflicting deadly punishment on the sinking Persian ships.
Breaking away from the tangle of Persians against Persians, the Greeks attacked practically at will.
Map of the Battle of Salamis
Aftermath
The Persian fleet suffered a severe setback at Salamis, where they lost 200 triremes, half their contingent, to the Greeks’ 40. After the disaster, Xerxes had no choice but to withdraw to safety, fearing that the Greeks would sail north and destroy the bridges over the Hellespont, cutting off their land supply route.
The Greeks did not immediately recognize the magnitude of their victory. There were more fights to be played. When Xerxes left, he left a force of 300,000 soldiers under the command of Mardonius. The following spring, the Persians recaptured Athens, but that summer the combined Athenian and Spartan armies drove Mardonius northward, decisively defeating him at Plataea in September. During the same month, a Greek fleet under the command of Xantipo once more defeated the Persians at Micale.
Greece was free at last from the threat of eastern rule. For half a century, Athens maintained the most powerful fleet in the ancient world, while the army of Sparta was the preeminent force in…