Battle of Salamis

O realm of Persia, and bounteous haven of wealth, at a single stroke all your plenteous prosperity has been shattered, and the flower of the Persians has fallen and perished!

and they held their course as each captain had been ordered, and all through the night the commanders of the fleet kept their whole force cruising to and fro across the strait.

Messenger:

It was just about ten years before the seafight at Salamis that the Persian force arrived under Datis, whom Darius had despatched expressly against the Athenians and Eretrians, with orders to bring them back in chains, and with the warning that death would be the penalty of failure.

None the less, Stranger, it was the sea-fight at Salamis, fought by the Greeks against the barbarians, which, as we Cretans at least affirm, saved Greece.

and we affirm also that, whereas these battles made the Greeks better, the sea-fights made them worse,—if one may use such an expression about battles that helped at that time to save us (for I will let you count Artemisium also as a sea-fight, as well as Salamis).

Does it seem to you that Themistocles, who was general when you conquered the Persian in the battle of Salamis, was the better man, or Demosthenes, who the other day deserted his post?

You have passed a law, fellow citizens, governing the men who steer the boats across the strait to Salamis;

as for example the Council on the Areopagus having risen in reputation during the Persian wars was believed to have made the constitution more rigid, and then again the naval multitude, having been the cause of the victory off Salamis and thereby of the leadership of Athens due to her power at sea, made the democracy stronger;

and no man would say that the battle of Salamis belonged to Themistocles,—it was the battle of the Athenians;

Take first Themistocles, who won the naval victory at Salamis, Miltiades, who commanded at Marathon, and many others, whose achievements were not on a level with those of our commanders today.

The barbarians were routed and tried to flee by sailing out to Phalerum, but the Aeginetans lay in wait for them in the strait and then performed deeds worth telling.

Those whose ships were sunk swam across to Salamis, unless they were killed in action, but many of the barbarians drowned in the sea since they did not know how to swim.

But the majority of the ships at Salamis were sunk, some destroyed by the Athenians, some by the Aeginetans.

a prohibition, which, after the battle of Salamis, restricted any Persian armed vessel from sailing between Phaselis and the above named rocks.

In short, our city was so far superior while she stood unharmed that even after she had been laid waste she contributed more ships to the battle for the deliverance of Hellas than all the others put together who fought in the engagement;

they were ready to give battle on the sea—they alone against twelve hundred ships of war.

Take, on the other hand, the case of Themistocles, who in the service of Hellas defeated them at Salamis:

or again, of those who were about to do battle at sea for their dearest, for the prizes there in Salamis?

They deposited their children and wives and mothers safe in Salamis, and assembled to their aid the ships of their allies.

They declared to all men, by their victory in the sea-fight, that there is better hope for the venture shared with a few in the cause of freedom than for that in which numerous subjects of a king contend for their own servitude.

To them, therefore, we award in this our speech the first prize for valor, and the second to those who fought and won the sea-fights off Salamis and at Artemisium.

but to the King she could not bring herself to lend official aid for fear of disgracing the trophies of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea, but she permitted exiles only and volunteers to assist him, and thereby, beyond a doubt, she saved him.

While the captains of the Hellenes were acting on this plan, Aristides noticed that Psyttaleia, a small island lying in the straits in front of Salamis, was full of the enemy.

Thus when Eurybiades wished to abandon Salamis, but the Barbarian triremes, putting out by night, had encompassed the strait where he lay round about, and had beset the islands therein, and no Hellene knew of this encompassment, Aristides came over to them from Aegina, venturously sailing through the enemy’s ships.

O Themistocles, said he, if we are wise, we shall at last lay aside our vain and puerile contention, and begin a salutary and honorable rivalry with one another in emulous struggles to save Hellas, thou as commanding general, I as assistant counsellor, since at the very outset I learn that thou art the only one who has adopted the best policy, urging as thou dost to fight a decisive sea-fight here …

And since he displayed brilliant and heroic qualities in the actual struggle at Salamis, he soon acquired reputation and good will in the city.

When the Medes made their invasion, and Themistocles was trying to persuade the people to give up their city, abandon their country, make a stand with their fleet off Salamis, and fight the issue at sea, most men were terrified at the boldness of the scheme;

but those of Aristides include the fairest, most brilliant, and most important actions of the Greeks, namely, Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea.

Furthermore, Aristides was not the foremost man in any one of his victories, but Miltiades has the chief honour of Marathon, Themistocles of Salamis, and at Plataea, Herodotus says it was Pausanias who won that fairest of all victories, while even for second honours Aristides has such rivals as Sophanes, Ameinias, Callimachus, and Cynaegeirus, who displayed the greatest valour in those actions.

Well, then, Ptolemy himself sailed to the attack with a hundred and fifty ships, and ordered Menelaüs to put out from Salamis with sixty ships, and when the struggle was fiercest, to assail the ships of Demetrius in the rear, and throw them into confusion.

These, they conjectured, were the Aeacidae, who had been prayerfully invoked before the battle to come to their aid.

The Attic ships were one hundred and eighty in number, and each had eighteen men to fight upon the decks, of whom four were archers and the rest men-at-arms.

Now the first man to capture an enemy’s ship was Lycomedes, an Athenian captain, who cut off its figure-head and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-bearer at Phlya.

and that when he came the second time, though we were not able to defend ourselves by land, we went on board our ships with all our people, and joined in the sea-fight at Salamis;

for when conquered by sea, thinking that his power was no longer what it had been, retreated as quickly as he could with the greater part of his army.