A congress of city states met at Corinth in late autumn of 481 BC,[21] and a confederate alliance of Greek city-states was formed. The Battle of Salamis The battle of Salamis was a naval battle that happened in 480 B.C.E and was fought by the Greeks and Persians. [16] Since this was to be a full-scale invasion, it required long-term planning, stock-piling and conscription. The battle would take on mythical status amongst the Greeks, but in reality it was merely the opening overture of a long war with several other battles making up the principal acts. [138][139][140], Militarily, it is difficult to draw many lessons from Salamis, because of the uncertainty about what actually happened. [67] Aeschylus, who fought at Salamis, also claims that he faced 1,207 warships there, of which 207 were "fast ships". [100][101] There are thus two possibilities; that during the night the Persians simply blocked the exit to the Straits, and then entered the straits in daylight; or that they entered the straits and positioned themselves for battle during the night. [78][79][80] However, very few appear to accept that there were this many ships at Salamis: most favour a number in the range 600-800. Much of this centres on the suggestion, from Herodotus, that the Allied ships were heavier, and by implication less maneuverable. [82] Herodotus tells us that Xerxes held a council of war, at which the Persian general Mardonius tried to make light of the defeat: Sire, be not grieved nor greatly distressed because of what has befallen us. According to Herodotus, the Persians suffered many more casualties than the Greeks because most Persians did not know how to swim.[112]. [117] The friendly ship she sank was a Calyndian ship and the king of the Calyndians, Damasithymos (Greek: Δαμασίθυμος) was on it. [90][110] If the initial ramming was not successful, marines boarded the enemy ship and something similar to a land battle ensued. To block the Persian advance, a small force of Greeks blocked the pass of Thermopylae, while an Athenian-dominated Allied navy engaged the Persian fleet in the nearby straits of Artemisium. [85] According to Herodotus, Queen Artemisia of Caria pointed this out to Xerxes in the run-up to Salamis. These extra troops came into their own when at close quarters with the enemy and in the case of boarding an enemy vessel. Most of the people in Athens knew this was coming and evacuated to the island of Salamis. By the first years of the 5th century BCE, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, under the rule of Darius I (r. 522-486 BCE), was already expanding into mainland Europe and had subjugated Thrace and Macedonia. The campaign had witnessed the Greeks pushed south and Athens captured. Commanders led from the front & each would have been on his own ship at the heart of the battle. [25] However, the Peloponnesian cities made fall-back plans to defend the Isthmus of Corinth should it come to it, whilst the women and children of Athens had been evacuated en masse to the Peloponnesian city of Troezen. Aeschylus states a total figure of 310 and Thucydides 400. [33] The battle at Artemisium had seen attempts to negate the Persian advantage in numbers, but ultimately the Allies may have realised that they needed an even more constricted channel in order to defeat the Persians. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Your children, your women, the seats of your fathers' gods, The naval Battle of Salamis in 306 BC took place off Salamis, Cyprus between the fleets of Ptolemy I of Egypt and Antigonus I Monophthalmus, two of the Diadochi, the generals who, after the death of Alexander the Great, fought each other for control of his empire. In 490 BCE Greek forces led by Athens met the Persians at the Battle of Marathon and defeated the invaders. He does not explicitly say that all 378 fought at Salamis ("All of these came to the war providing triremes...The total number of ships...was three hundred and seventy-eight"),[1] and he also says that the Aeginetans "had other manned ships, but they guarded their own land with these and fought at Salamis with the thirty most seaworthy". [135] Thus, this school of thought argues that, given the domination of much of modern history by Western Civilization, Persian domination of Greece might have changed the whole trajectory of human history. Herodotus’ figures are once again inconsistent, his grand total of 380 triremes making up the Greek fleet is 15 more than the sum of his individual state contributions: The figures for some states are suspiciously similar to those given before the Battle of Artemision, implausibly suggesting either they suffered next to no losses in that conflict or a swift replacement of vessels. Xerxes had obviously not anticipated such resistance, or he would have arrived earlier in the campaigning season (and not waited 4 days at Thermopylae for the Greeks to disperse). [47][104] If the Persians only entered the straits at dawn, then the Allies would have had the time to take up their station in a more orderly fashion.[100]. During the day the … Xerxes, sitting on Mount Aigaleo on his throne, witnessed the carnage. Battle of Marathon (September 490 BCE), in the Greco-Persian Wars, decisive battle in which the Athenians repulsed the first Persian invasion of Greece. [29], The Allied fleet now rowed from Artemisium to Salamis to assist with the final evacuation of Athens. [90] Both sides had marines on their ships for this eventuality; the Greeks with fully armed hoplites;[100] the Persians probably with more lightly armed infantry. At the same time, the Peloponnesians were building a wall to prevent the advance of the Persian army. [134], Like the Battles of Marathon and Thermopylae, Salamis has gained something of a 'legendary' status (unlike, for instance, the more decisive Battle of Plataea), perhaps because of the desperate circumstances and the unlikely odds. Furthermore, to prevent the Persians bypassing Thermopylae by sea, the Athenian and allied navies could block the straits of Artemisium. In the resulting Battle of Thermopylae, the rearguard of the Greek force was annihilated, whilst in the Battle of Artemisium the Greeks had heavy losses and retreated after the loss at Thermopylae. "Battle of Salamis." Able to rapidly accelerate, break, zigzag, and turn 360 degrees in just two ships’ lengths, good seamanship could place the vessel to best advantage and employ the principal strategy of naval warfare at that time which was to ram the enemy, making full use of the bronze ram fitted to the prow of the vessel. It was won by the Greeks whom were much better at sea battle than the Persians who were used to fighting on land. [93] Therefore, by rowing into the Straits of Salamis to attack the Greeks, the Persians were playing into the Allies' hands. [104] According to Plutarch, this was to gain better position, and also in order to gain time until the early morning wind. [32], This strategy was flawed, however, unless the Allied fleet was able to prevent the Persian fleet from transporting troops across the Saronic Gulf. 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