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 sea, the great Persian king Xerxes mobilized with enormous forces against the Greek city-states, mainly Athens and Sparta. At Thermopylae, a mere 300 Spartan hoplites sacrificed themselves to buy precious time.
Data of the Battle of Salamis
- Who: A combined Greek naval force under the command of the Athenian Themistocles, numbering 300 triremes, was opposed by 400 Persian triremes commanded by various admirals as Xerxes (d. 486 BC) watched from a nearby prominence seated on a golden throne.
- How: The Persian fleet was crushed and fled in disorder after being lured into shallow water. surrounded and attacked by the rams of Greek ships.
- Where: In the Saronic Gulf, near the island of Salamis, west of modern Athens, Greece.
- When: September 20, 480 BC
- Why: The great Persian king Xerxes wanted to avenge his father's defeat. Dario, in Marathon a decade earlier and expanding his empire to Europe.
- Result: The Persians suffered heavy losses and were forced to withdraw. 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 extended 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 western coast of Asia Minor. In 500 B.C. 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 the Persian city of Sardis. In 491 BC Darius attempted to punish the Athenians for meddling in what he considered to be an internal affair. His punitive expedition, however, met with disaster on the plain of Marathon. Forced to drain the bitter cup of failure. Darío died after a reign of 36 years, without quenching his thirst for revenge.
Enter Xerxes
When Xerxes, the son of Darius, came to the throne of Persia, he did not initially embrace his father's desire for revenge. However, after crushing 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 neighbors in the Peloponnese, we will enlarge the empire of Persia so much that its borders will be the very sky 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 the newly found wealth, Themistocles' voice was raised. Athens was to expand her navy to counter the threat of a Persian invasion. Themistocles had no doubt considered that the Persians would need large numbers of ships to carry supplies for the war if they approached Greece again. He was also aware of the combat proficiency of the heavily armed Spartan hoplites on land.
The Campaign
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 pulled off a couple of great engineering feats . They built a bridge with two eyes over the Hellespont, called today 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 1.5-mile-wide canal to cross an isthmus alongside Mount Athos. Finally, 10 long years after their humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon, the Persian army was once again on the march towards Greece. A number of Greek cities swore allegiance to Xerxes as his irresistible force inexorably advanced on 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 50 feet 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 each time they were repulsed with heavy losses. Not even the Immortals, the elite of the Persian army , well known for their fearlessness and drive, 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 left 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 commit to memory the names of the 300 Spartans who stood their ground 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:That's good news…because if the Persians hide the sun, we can fight the shadow . Killed 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. It prayed:Friend, announce to the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, submissive to their law . The heroic Spartans of 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 word that the Persians had taken Thermopylae, Themistocles withdrew his fleet to the island of Salamis, which offered a safe harbor.
Delay and cheating
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 the ground. 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 told 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 escape 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.
Layouts
Xerxes planned simply to crush the 300 Greek triremes 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 and narrow waters near Eleusinian Bay. 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 hoist sail and feign retreat.
Persian triremes, built to fight on the open sea, would be almost unable to maneuver in the straits. They were heavier than the Greek ones and rose higher above the water, while carrying up to 30 archers, as opposed to the 14 aboard Greek ships.
The Battle of Salamis
On the morning of September 20, 480 BC, Xerxes ascended 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 ciaboga. However, the ships behind them had nowhere to go, throwing the fleet into disarray. The superior numbers of the Persians had now become a hindrance rather than an asset.
A line of Greek triremes maneuvered in order to encircle the bewildered enemy, their bronze rams inflicting deadly punishment on the Persian ships, which sank.
Breaking away from the tangle of Persians against Persians, the Greeks attacked practically at will.
Aftermath
The Persian fleet suffered a serious setback at Salamis, where they lost 200 triremes, half their contingent, to the Greeks' 40. After the disaster, Xerxes had no choice but to retreat to safety, fearing that the Greeks would sail north and destroy the bridges over the Hellespont, cutting off his land supply route.
The Greeks did not immediately recognize the magnitude of their victory. There were more fights to play. When Xerxes departed, he left a force of 300,000 soldiers under the command of Mardonius. The following spring, the Persians took Athens again, but that summer the combined Athenian and Spartan armies drove Mardonius north, defeating him decisively at Plataea in September. During the same month, a Greek fleet under Xanthippus once again 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 Sparta's army was the preeminent force on land. A growing rivalry and mistrust eventually led the two city-states to turn against each other. Ironically, the names of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis were remembered with reverence by both. It had been a time when the Greeks had acted together, and these victories determined the course of human history.