c. Sept. 17. Persians places of safety. This was done. The women and children were transported to Troezen, Aegina, and Salamis. The council of Areopagus helped at this crisis by distributing from the treasury of Athena eight drachmae to each citizen who embarked. At the same time the great natural strength of the Acropolis, though its walls had been demolished after the expulsion of the tyrants, encouraged the hope that it might be held against the Persians, and a small garrison was left to defend it. This bold and wise policy of embarkation was dictated by the circumstances, but it was supposed to have been based on an oracle, which foretold the utter destruction of Attica with the sole exception of a "wooden wall." The wooden wall was interpreted to mean the ships. And to suit this view it was represented that the garrison left on the Acropolis was merely a handful of poor citizens who remained behind and barricaded themselves there, because they adopted the more literal interpretation of a wooden barricade. This explanation of the oracle was perhaps suggested by subsequent events. While the Athenians were thus showing that they were not bound to their soil, the allied fleet had stationed itself in the bay of Salamis, and it was reinforced by new contingents, so that it reached the total strength of 378 triremes and seven penteconters. The army at the Isthmus was now placed under the command of Cleombrotus, brother of Leonidas and guardian of his son Pleistarchus, who was still a child. Xerxes arrived at Athens about the same time that his fleet sailed into the roadstead of Phaleron. He found the town empty, but for the small band which had entrenched itself on the Acropolis. Persian troops occupied the lower height of the Areopagus, which is capture the severed from the Acropolis by a broad saddle, and succeeded in Acropolis. setting the wooden barricade on fire by means of burning arrows. The garrison rolled stones down on them, and such is the natural strength of the Acropolis that the siege lasted two weeks. Then the Persians managed to ascend on the precipitous north side by the secret path which emerged close to the shrine of Aglaurus. The Greeks were slain, the temples plundered and burnt. Will the Greek fleet fight at Salamis or the After the fall of the Acropolis the Greek generals held a council of war, and it was carried by the votes of the majority that they should retreat to the Isthmus and await there the attack of the Persian fleet. The advantage of this seemed to be that they would Isthmus? there be in close touch with the land forces and have the Peloponnesus as a retreat in case of defeat; whereas at Salamis they would be entirely cut off. This decision meant the abandonment of Aegina, Salamis, and Megara; and it was strenuously opposed by the Aeginetans, Athenians, and Megarians. Themistocles determined to thwart it. He went privately to Eurybiadas and convinced him that it would be much more advantageous to fight in the narrow waters of the Salaminian channel than in the open bay of the Isthmus, where the superior speed and number of the hostile ships would tell. A new council was summoned at which, it is said, hot words passed between the Athenian and the Corinthian general. When Themistocles opened the debate without waiting for the formal introduction of Eurybiadas, the Corinthian Adeimantus said, "O Themistocles, those who stand up too soon in the games are whipped." "Yes," was the reply, "but those who start late are not crowned." It is recorded that Themistocles, in order to carry his point, had to threaten that the Athenians, who were half the fleet, would cease to co-operate with their allies and seek new homes in some western land, if the retreat to the Isthmus were decided. Themistocles won his way; and when it was resolved to fight in Salaminian waters, the heroes of the island, Ajax and Telamon, were invoked, and a ship was sent to Aegina to fetch the other Aeacid heroes. and saw in the Of all the tales of signs and marvels which befell in these What memorable days none perhaps was more attractive to the Athenians Demaratus than the experience of two Greek exiles as they walked in the Dicaeus Thriasian plain. One was an Athenian named Dicaeus, and his companion was none other than Demaratus, the Spartan king, who had Thriasian sought refuge at the Persian court. As they went, they saw a great plain. dust afar off near Eleusis, such a dust as they thought might be raised by a host of thirty thousand men ; and then they heard a voice suddenly from the midst of the dust, and it sounded like the cry of the mystic Iacchus which is cried at the Eleusinian festival. Demaratus asked his companion what it might be. "It is a token," said Dicaeus, "of some great disaster to the King's host. For since the plain is desolate of men, it is clear that the thing which uttereth the cry is divine,—and it is a thing coming from Eleusis to help the Athenians. If it turn to the Peloponnese, the peril menaces the army of the land, but if it wend toward the ships, then are the King's ships endangered." "Peace," said Demaratus, "for if these words of thine come to the King's ears, thou shalt lose thy head." Then the dust, wherein the voice was, turned to a cloud, and rising aloft moved towards the Greek fleet at Salamis; and so they knew that the fleet of Xerxes was doomed. Meanwhile the Persians too had deliberated and determined to fight. According to a Halicarnassian story told by Herodotus, the Carian queen Artemisia alone gave sound advice-not to risk a sea fight but either to wait for the Greek fleet to disperse from want of provisions, or to advance by land into the Peloponnesus. The southern entrance to the narrow sound between Salamis and Attica is blocked by the islet of Psyttalea and the long promontory which runs out from Salamis towards the mainland. The Greek fleet was anchored close to the town of Salamis, north of this promontory. It would be best for the Greeks if they could lure the Persian fleet to enter the Salaminian bay so that its flank would be exposed as it sailed through the narrow waters. It would be best for the Persians if they could force the Greeks out into the open sea. Xerxes foresaw the possibility that his enemies might attempt to escape at night, and to prevent this he moved his armament so as to enclose the ingresses of the two straits on either side of Psyttalea, Themis tocles FIG. 82. Battle of 3 3 9 Walker & Boutall sc and landed troops on that island, to rescue Persians and kill Greeks who should happen to swim to its shores in the expected battle. These movements, carried out in the afternoon, alarmed the Greeks; the Peloponnesian commanders brought pressure to bear on Eurybiadas; another council was called, and Themistocles saw that the Artifice of hard-won result of his previous exertions would now be overthrown. He therefore determined on a bold stroke. Leaving the council, he dispatched a slave named Sicinnus to the Persian camp bearing a message from himself, as a well-wisher to Xerxes, that the Greeks purposed to sail away in the night. If they were prevented from doing so, a Persian victory was certain, owing to the disunion which existed in the Hellenic camp. If the Persians attacked the Greeks to bring on a battle. where they were, the Athenians would turn against their allies. This message was believed, and Xerxes took his measures at nightfall to hinder the Greek fleet from escaping by the western straits between Salamis and the Megarid. He sent his 200 Egyptian ships to round the southern promontory of Salamis and place themselves so that they could bar the straits. And he decided to attack in the morning-a fatal decision, which only the prospect of the treachery of some of his foes could have induced him to take. The Greek generals meanwhile were engaged in hot discussion. Suddenly Themistocles was called out from the council. It was his rival Aristides who had sailed across from Aegina and brought the news that the fleet was surrounded by the enemy. Themistocles made Aristides inform the generals of what had happened, and the tidings was presently confirmed by a Tenian ship which deserted from the Persians. There is no reason to question the sensational incident that Aristides brought the news; but we need not suppose that this was his first return from ostracism. It seems probable that he had been sent with the ship which fetched the Aeacids from Aegina and that he was one of the ten strategoi. battle. Themistocles had managed that a naval battle should be fought Position of at Salamis, and under the conditions most favourable to the Greeks. fleets on The position and tactics of the two armaments have been the day before subject of much debate. According to the poet Aeschylus, who was an eyewitness of the battle, the Persian ships were drawn up in three lines outside the entrance into the sound. The extreme left wing was composed of the Ionian Greeks, while the right, towards the Piraeus, was the Phoenician squadron on which Xerxes chiefly relied. The Greek fleet was drawn up behind the promontory of Cynosura and facing northward; the Athenians on the left, near the town of Salamis; the Aeginetans probably near them; and the Lacedaemonians on the right. On the opposite mainland shore, under Mount Aegaleos, a high throne was erected, from which Xerxes could survey the battle and watch the conduct of his men. At break of day the Persians began to advance into the straits. The battle, The three lines converted their formation into three columns, and c. Sept. 20. the Phoenicians led the way through the opening between Psyttalea and the mainland. The Ionians on the left would naturally move through the smaller channel between Psyttalea and Salamis. When the Phoenicians came into view, the Athenian squadron immediately advanced, assailed them in the flank, and cut them off from the rest of the fleet, driving them towards the Attic shore. The other Persian divisions crowded through the straits, and a furious mellay ensued, which lasted till nightfall. There was no room for the exercise of tactical skill in the crowded, narrow waters, where the Causes of defeat. fairway (between Cynosura and Attica) is little more than a mile in breadth. The valour of the Aeginetans was conspicuous. They seem to have completed the discomfiture of the Phoenicians, and to have dispersed the Ionians. The Persians, under the eyes of their king, fought with great bravery, but they were badly generalled and the place of the combat was unfavourable to them. By sunset the great armament of Xerxes was partly destroyed, partly put out of action. Aristides, who with a force of Athenian hoplites was watching events on the shore of Salamis, crossed over to Psyttalea and killed the barbarians who had been posted there by Xerxes. Anecdote of Among the anecdotes told about this battle the most famous is Artemisia. that which was current at Halicarnassus, of the signal bravery and no less signal good fortune of the Carian queen Artemisia. She saved herself by the stratagem of attacking and sinking another Carian vessel. Those who stood round Xerxes observed the incident, but supposed the destroyed trireme to be Greek. "Sire," they said, "seest thou how Artemisia has sunk an enemy's ship." And Xerxes exclaimed, "My men have become women, my women men." Movements the defeat, SECT. 5. CONSEQUENCES OF SALAMIS The Greek victory of Salamis was a heavy, perhaps a decisive, of the Per- blow to the naval arm of the Persian power. The wrath of Xerxes sians after against the Phoenicians was boundless. On them he had relied, and to their infidelity he ascribed the loss of the battle; his threats so frightened the remnant of the Phoenician contingent that they deserted. But the prospects of the ultimate success of the invasion were still favourable. The land army had met with no reverse, and was overwhelmingly superior in numbers. The only difficulty was to keep it supplied with provisions, and in this respect the loss of the command of the sea was a serious misfortune. The Greeks represented Xerxes as smitten with wild terror, fleeing back overland to the Hellespont and hardly drawing breath till he reached Susa. This dramatic glorification of the victory misrepresents the situation. Xerxes personally was in no jeopardy. The real danger lay not in Attica but in Ionia. The Persians had good reason to fear the effect which the news of the crushing defeat of their navy might have upon the Greeks of Asia, and if Xerxes dreaded anything, he dreaded the revolt which actually came to pass in the following year. It was allimportant for him to secure his line of retreat, while he had no intention of relinquishing his enterprise of conquering Greece. These considerations explain what happened. The Persian fleet was immediately dispatched to the Hellespont to guard the bridge and and the cause thereof. |