The Ancients - The Battle of Salamis

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

We've had the Battle of Thermopylae with the brilliant Paul Cartledge; we've had the Battle of Artemisium with the great Owen Rees. And I'm delighted to say that we are today fulfilling the 2,499 Persian War 'trilogy' with the Battle of Salamis. One of the most famous naval clashes of antiquity, it saw a small (largely-Athenian) fleet square up against the mighty Persian armada of King Xerxes. It occurred around this time (c.22 September), 2,499 years ago.I was thrilled to be joined by Professor Barry Strauss to talk through the Battle of Salamis. In this podcast he provides a thorough account of the clash and explains why the battle became so important to the Athenians. Barry is the author of 'The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece - and Western Civilisation'. He is also the host of the Antiquitas podcast.A second podcast with Barry, on 10 Roman Emperors, will be out in due time!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. We've had the Basler Thermopylae with the legendary Paul Cartlidge. We've had the Battle of Artemisium with the great Owen Rees. And I'm delighted to say that today we are fulfilling the trilogy, as it were, because today's topic is the Battle of Salamis,

that famous naval clash which occurred around this time 2,499 years ago. To talk through this clash I was delighted to be joined by the brilliant Barry Strauss from Cornell University. He has written a book all about the Bast of Salamis and he's also the host of the Antiquitas podcast so please do go and check that out. Without further ado, here's Barry. Barry, it is great to have you back. How have you been? I've been great, thanks. It's great to be back. Thank you for having me. No problem. And we are talking about another massive topic, the Battle of Salamis. And can we say this is perhaps one of, or if not the most famous, naval clash of antiquity,

which we also have quite a lot of information about? By the standards of ancient history, yes, we are relatively well informed. So let's start with the background. Roughly in early September, I'm guessing, of 480 BC, the Thermopylae line has just fallen. What's the situation? Are the Greeks in retreat? Yes. At the end of August, the Greeks won one at Artemisium. At least they tied. And then they had a big defeat at Thermopylae. And their armies were in retreat. They were heading back south, the Athenians to Athens, the Peloponnesians to the Peloponnesus. And you mentioned that the Peloponnesians, they're heading back to the Peloponnesus. And you mentioned that the Peloponnesians, they're heading back to the Peloponnese itself. Does this sound as if this splitting of forces, do they not at the moment have a clear idea of where they're going to face the Persians next? Well, yes, there is a division between them. The Greek fleet, actually, I should say, just to correct what I said before, the Greek

fleet is based on the island of Salamis. So just off the coast of Athens, off the coast of Attica. However, the Peloponnesians want to make a stand with their army, and they want to do so at the Isthmus of Corinth. They want to build a wall there and be able to take a defensive position against the Persian fleet. position against the Persian fleet. So if they're now deciding to establish this next line at the Isthmus of Corinth, that is quite a long way south from where they were previously at Thermopylae. It is, but you know, they never committed most of their armies to Thermopylae. That was just a small advanced force that they sent there. They did not want to risk their major forces so far away from home. So it sounds like then, do the Persians, after they break through at Thermopylae, do they now basically have a clear road all the way to Athens?

They do, yes. There's really nothing to stop them all the way to Athens. So begs the question, what do the Athenians do when they discover that this huge Persian army is coming rapidly towards them? Yeah, well, it's more like what they don't do. They don't panic. They have been planning for this for several years, and they are rather well organized. And the plan is to evacuate Attica and move them around the Saronic Gulf. The women and children are supposed to go to Troisen on the far end of the Gulf, and the men are supposed to go to Salamis, to a naval base there. So they decide to abandon Athens completely? Yes, or we should say that most of the Athenians decide to abandon Athens completely. There are a small group who insist on taking up a defensive position on the Acropolis,

in what is today downtown Athens, and building a wooden fortification, a palisade, to protect the temples. They believe the gods will protect them if they stand and fight for the gods. So there's a small group that do that. We should also point out that it wasn't easy to convince the people of Athens to evacuate. The leadership had to use political and religious tricks. The priestess of Athena was enlisted to say that the holy snake of the goddess refused to eat its honey cake, an indication that the goddess had abandoned the city. And in the ancient world, it was taken as a given that when a city was about to fall,

the patron deity would leave. That was a sure sign the city was going. So from what you're saying there, the gods were behind the evacuation as well? Yes, yes, absolutely. And of course, they had already consulted the Oracle of Delphi as to what to do. And the Oracle of Delphi had given a suitably Delphic answer to trust in the wooden walls. And some Athenians said, oh, that means we need to build a wooden wall, a palisade. But the majority opinion was, no, the wooden walls are the ships, the new fleet that we have built to fight the Persians. So you mentioned that fleet. And from what you're saying there, it sounds like this Athenian fleet, largely Athenian fleet, it's a relatively recent construction,

a relatively recent development by the Athenians. Yes, the Athenians had voted to build this fleet only three years before. And they are using, they're funding the fleet through a strike in their silver mine. So in the southern tip of Attica, there was an antiquity, a relatively rich vein of silver. And in 483, they found quite a load of silver. There was a debate in the Athenian assembly as to what to do. Should they use it to make distributions to every Athenian citizen? it to make distributions to every Athenian citizen, or should they fund a fleet on the assumption that the Persians were coming back? They had once invaded Attica before.

Ah, so clever, clever. So they did decide to do the correct option, it seems then, in hindsight especially. You mentioned the Greek fleet there. I mean, what is its role in the evacuation? I'm guessing it plays quite a significant logistics role in that. That's a really good question. We're not well informed about it, but certainly the Greek fleet would have played a role in ferrying people out of there. They also would have used merchant ships as well to move the civilian population out of Athens.

It probably would have been more practical than using warships. Of course, of course. I mean, in regards to these fleets, obviously it sounds like the Athenians, they have the largest contingent in the fleets, but it isn't just Athenian ships. No, it's not just Athenian ships. There are ships from approximately 30 different Greek city-states. So only a small minority of all the different Greek city-states decided to resist the mighty Persian Empire. The other relatively big contingents were Corinth, a naval power on the Corinthian Gulf, the island of Aegina, which both Corinth and Aegina were rivals of Athens.

Sparta had a small fleet, and there were a number of other Greek city-states, down to one ship that came from far off Croton in southern Italy. So it does really sound as if this navy, although, as you said, only a very small amount of city-states, actual Greek city-states, were deciding to fight against the Persians. But still, you have these contingents, as you say, coming from as far away as southern Italy. Yes, absolutely.

But that was unique. In general, they're coming from as far away as southern Italy. Yes, absolutely. But that was unique. In general, they're coming from around the Aegean. And at the previous Bastet Artemisium, I think we've seen already how there seems to be some, let's say, tension in the ranks of these different contingents. Is it still very much that the whole unity of this fleet before the Bastet Salamis, it's hanging by a thread? Absolutely by a thread. Unity is a disaster waiting to happen. Indeed, it has happened.

The Athenian strategy is to fight the battle in the Straits of Salamis. That is essential. The Peloponnesians and the other Greeks decide that that is hopeless, that Athens is lost. and the other Greeks decide that that is hopeless, that Athens is lost. They see the Persians marching into the city of Athens. The Persians overwhelm the defenders, they kill them, and they take the Acropolis and they burn the temples of the gods in revenge to what the Athenians had done several years earlier, actually almost 20 years earlier, when they burned the temple of the goddess Artemis in a rebellion against the Persians in Anatolia. Now the Persians burn the Athenian temples, the other Greeks see the smoke, as do the Athenian refugees, and they say, it's over, we need to leave this place and move to the Peloponnesus and defend ourselves there.

Whereas the Athenian argument is, this is the one perfect place to make our naval stand. This is the one place where we can defeat the enemy. Our entire strategy depends on fighting here. So how do the Athenians ultimately convince the Peloponnesians to stay at Salamis? They don't. They trick them into staying in Salamis. this is the marvelous story of the great Athenian leader Themistocles. Themistocles is a genius. Thucydides, the great historian, admires him and says that he had a unique ability to foresee the future and to predict what was going to happen. And he was ferociously intelligent and quick and if necessary unscrupulous. What he did was he

pulled a double cross. He sent a slave from the Greek camp on Salamis, the Greek base on Salamis, in a small boat to the Persian base at Phaleron Bay, a few miles away by sea on the mainland of Athens. And there he gave the message to the Persian king that the Greeks were going to leave Salamis the next morning. They were going to pull out. And if the Persians wanted to stop them, they should send their ships into the Salamis Straits that very night. And they would shock the Greeks the next morning and

prevent the Greeks from leaving. This message had the advantage of being true. Themistocles was claiming that he was betraying the Greek fleet. He said, if you come in, I will take the Athenian contingent, the largest contingent, and we will defect to the side of the Persians. Now, the Persians had experience of Greek traders, quite a lot of experience of Greek traders. This was, in fact, the preferred Persian tactic for winning a battle. And so, although there was division in the Persian ranks as to whether this was true or false, in the end, Xerxes, the king, made the decision that this was the truth and that the Persian fleet should mobilize and that very night should sail a row into the Salamis Straits. And so they do. The slave goes back and gives the message to Themistocles that it's going to happen.

And Themistocles alerts the other Greeks that the Persians are coming into the Straits. The other Greeks now realize we have no choice but to stand and fight. And so Themistocles gets what he wants. He gets a battle in the straits of the Greeks against the Persians. He's tricked the Persians and he's tricked the Greeks and everyone's forced to fight exactly as he wanted it to be. Ah, Themistocles the trickster, because officially he's not actually commanding the fleet, is he? No, officially the fleet is commanded by a Spartan. There you go. And just quickly before we go on to the battle and the preparation and all that,

you mentioned the Straits of Salamis. Just geographically, is this just south of Athens off the coast? Yes, it's just south of the coast of Attica, so the territory of Athens. It's just south and west of the city. And the strait is between the mainland and the island of Salamis. Yes. At its narrowest, it's one and a half miles wide. Wow. And especially for something like naval warfare, where when we consider a row abreast of ships, and especially when we're thinking of the numbers of that year, 480, that's a really,

really small area. It's a small area. Yeah. And that's why Themistocles chooses it. So he's convinced or tricked the Peloponnesians to stay, but looking at the Persian perspective, first of all, what is the Persian plan? What is Xerxes' plan and what is his admirals' plan? Xerxes and his admirals, they had a very good navy. They were very experienced, and their best contingent was the Phoenicians. Like the Greeks, the Phoenicians had excellent galleys, the so-called triremes, with rowers arranged on three levels.

They had quite a lot of experience. Their ships were very fast. They also outnumbered the Greeks by something like two to one in terms of the number of ships. So they felt that they could outmaneuver the Greeks and they could overwhelm them. And that was their plan for victory. Also, because they believed what the traitor Themistocles had told them, or the apparent traitor, they thought that by going into the straits at night, they would have the advantage of surprise.

And surprise, of course, is a force multiplier. They would terrify the enemy. The enemy would not be ready to fight them. They were planning to leave and they would have an unready, demoralized enemy. It would be a relatively easy matter to defeat them at sea. And this plan, I know we always seem to get in the sources that Xerxes is this incapable commander, but it seems quite a sound strategy for what you've been saying. It is. He's not a bad commander. The only weakness in it is that it trusts what the Greek has said. It trusts the intelligence. You know, it's an issue that often comes up in war. Do you trust the intelligence? Here the intelligence said the enemy is about to leave. It had the advantage of being true. The enemy was about to leave. So they probably had

many other indications. They certainly had scouts and spies, and they probably had other indications that this was true. What they didn't count on was that Themistocles was double-crossing them, didn't count on was that Themistocles was double-crossing them, that he was a double agent, and that the enemy was going to be able, with relatively little effort, to switch to a fighting mode and they would be ready against them. In that case, the Persians would be at a disadvantage. So the Persians, they thought, because of this misinformation, they thought that they had the element of surprise, but actually they didn't. They didn't have the element of surprise. In fact, the Greeks had the element of surprise because the Persians expected to see this fleet getting ready to leave. Instead, they see a fleet getting ready to fight. So we get to the day of the battle itself. Whenever that day was, what are the opening moves?

what are the opening moves the two fleets are lined up each with a friendly shore behind it so the persian fleet is lined up facing south using the mainland of attica behind it as a friendly shore you need a friendly shore because you need to be able to swim back to that if you get into difficulty the greeks are lined up facing more or less north with the salamis behind them at the beginning of the battle, the Greeks are backing water. They're allowing the Persians to come towards them. Perhaps they were afraid they had to get their nerve up, but as we'll see, they also had another reason to want to delay the start of the battle as long as possible. Finally, one of the Greek ships, according to one tradition, an Athenian ship, according to another tradition, a ship from Aegina, rams a Persian ship, and the game is on.

That starts the battle. Okay, begs the question, what happens next? So, one of the reasons why Themistocles wanted to fight in the Salamis Strait is if they had fought in open water, the Persians would have the advantage of having faster ships and more numerous ships. They could have surrounded the Greeks and they could have attacked them by using one of several tactics. One of them was to row around the enemy ship. So these ships preferred to ram the enemy. row around the enemy ship. So these ships prefer to ram the enemy. And plan B, if that doesn't work, is to send Marines across and to fight on the deck. Triremes can't ram each other head on because their prows aren't strong enough to do that. It would break the ram off in the prow.

Instead, they need to ram the ship on the side. And to do that, you need to get the enemy to show you his side. You either have to come around the enemy and circle back or row through the line of the enemy ships and go on the side. An alternative is to shear off the oars of the enemy ship as you row by. Not an easy thing to do. All of these things are difficult. They require practice, maneuver, and space. But the Persians don't have space because they're now fighting in the narrow Salamis Straits. Furthermore, the Greek ships are heavier and slower than the Persian ships. We're not really sure why that is because Herodotus tells us that the Greek ships were built for speed and

maneuverability. It may be because they were ships with young wood that wasn't seasoned yet. It may be that they were waterlogged or they didn't have time to dry their ships out. But for whatever reason, they were heavier. On open water, that would have been a disadvantage. But in a narrow space, it's an advantage to have a heavier ship because it packs a heavier punch. And so the Greeks are doing damage to the enemy fleet, particularly to the elite Phoenician units, the best units in the enemy fleet. So the battle is not going well for the Persians. That's quite interesting what you're saying about the size and the strength of these ships. So it sounds like, as you say, there seems to be a noticeable difference in the design of the Athenian ships compared to those of the Phoenicians or the Egyptians or the Ionian Greek ships of the Persians. Yeah, maybe the Ionian Greek ships were not so different than the Athenian ships, but the Phoenician ships certainly were and probably Egyptian ships were too.

They also were taller than the Greek ships, and they had bulwarks. That is to say, if you can imagine a kind of a fence around the deck, protecting the men on deck. This also turns out to be a factor in the battle, because Themistocles knew that every morning around 10 a.m. a breeze blew up, a relatively light breeze, but it was enough of a breeze to unsettle the ships. And the higher the ships were, the more the breeze would unsettle them. The lower ships would have less of a problem. And the Persian ships were unsettled by this breeze, which also gave the Greeks an advantage against them in the Salamis Straits, because the Persians did not have good intelligence about what to expect. The

Athenians were locals, of course. Salamis was part of the territory of Athens, and so they knew very well what the weather conditions there were likely to be on the day of the battle. And that helped the Greeks as well. Ah, so he's using home advantage as it were. And just before we keep going on with the progress of the battle, we've seen previously at the Battle of Artemisium how the Persians, they see the Greeks at Artemisium and then they decide to send a small detachment round the island of Euboea, hoping to catch them from behind, as it were. And this whole encircling idea, is there any idea that the Persians tried something similar at Salamis at the same time as the battle was going on? There is a source that claims that

the Persians did try something similar at Salamis. They've sent a contingent around the island of Salamis to be blocked by the Corinthians. I'm clear whether that's true or not. It's not in our best sources for the battle. It's in another one. It's not out of the question. But I'm unclear whether that's true or not. It's not in our best sources for the battle. It's in another one. It's not out of the question, but I'm a little sceptical of it myself. Okay. I guess it shows, as you say, for the ancient period, especially for something in the 5th century BC, we have quite a lot of sources surviving talking about it. We do. We have a number of sources. So this initial clash, as you said, the heavier Athenian ships seem to be having better luck against the Persian ships at this time. Eventually, what happens? Does it become

a land battle at sea, as it were? I don't think so. It's more of a battle of ramming, from what our sources tell us. And so what happens then? Well, one of the problems the Persians have is that as they're defeated, their ships turn to flee. Unfortunately, the Persians weren't able to get all of their navy into the straits the night before the battle. There are still Persian ships coming into the straits. And so what you have is a traffic jam with some ships trying to flee, some ships coming in. It's really quite a mess. Now, one of the reasons why the ships really want to come in

is that Xerxes, the king of Persia, is seated on a throne on a hillside above the straits on the mainland, observing everything that happens. And so if you have a contingent in the Persian navy, you want to make sure that the king knows that you're there. You want to get your ticket punched, as it were. And so nobody is going to not come into the straits. They're all going to come in. So the result is really quite a mess and makes things worse for the Persian Navy. Is it once again this idea that there seems to be a lack of communication in the Persian Navy? Yeah, I mean, I think there had a very good communications ability given the limits of ancient technology.

I think the problem is political. I think the problem is that there would have been too much stress on these people. Nobody wanted to be branded with the stigma of not having done his part for the great king. Everybody wanted to be able to say, I tried, my contingent tried to help you. And so don't blame what happened on us. So if it sounds like that you have these ships trying to get into the action, but also these other ships trying to escape, what happens next? Well, the battle goes on until nightfall. The Greeks are doing quite a lot of damage to the Persians. There are sailors on these ships when the ships are immobilized.

Generally, these ships are not going to sink unless you burn them. There's no fire hours that we know of used in this battle. They're immobilized. They don't sink. It gives men the time to get off the ship, but they want to swim to shore. And the Greeks are killing them mercilessly. They're shooting arrows at them. They're beating them with oars. There's a slaughter going on. You know, one of the famous incidents in the battle takes place with Artemisia. I don't know if you want to ask me about her now or later. Absolutely. What's the story of Artemisia? So Artemisia is the most well-known participant in the Persian navy. She is the queen of Halicarnassus. It's a city on the southwestern coast of Anatolia, the modern Turkish city of Bodrum, a resort town. And she is the only female

officer that we know of, the only female in the Persian fleet. And as far as we know, she's the first female admiral in history. Herodotus is a hometown boy. He comes from Helicarnassus. He's our best Greek source for the battle. And he talks a lot about her role. She was a trusted advisor of Xerxes. And Xerxes also thought that she played a brilliant propaganda role for him. Because by sending a woman against the Greeks, he was insulting them. Sorry, it's not politically correct today, but by ancient standards, by saying, I'm sending a woman against you, you're saying, even a girl can beat you. You're not much of a team at all. And the Greeks were very insulted by this, and there was a price on Artemisia's head. a big reward for whoever could capture her.

So one of the best Athenian captains, the man allegedly the Athenians said who had the first kill of the day, sees Artemisia's flagship in the battle, and he tells his helmsman to strike a course towards it. Artemisia sees him coming, and she does something fiendishly clever. sees him coming, and she does something fiendishly clever. She decides to save herself by ramming a friendly ship, by ramming the ship that came from a ruler of a neighboring city. And she does it. She destroys the ship and probably orders that every man on the ship should be killed as well, because dead men tell no tales. It's been pointed out that the commander of the ship was a rival prince who had even insulted her earlier. So one story goes, and perhaps she was killing two birds with one stone, saving her life and also getting revenge on this guy. Now, one might guess

that she also changed the flag on her ship so that she couldn't be identified. Anyhow, it worked. The Athenians said, you know what? On second thought, that couldn't be Artemisia because she struck a Persian ship. It must be one of ours. So leave the ship alone. That's a tall tale, but there's even a taller tale. So Xerxes is watching the battle from his throne on the hillside. He's not close enough to be able to see any of the details.

They don't have binoculars in the ancient world. But he has runners on the shore and servants who are bringing him a play-by-play account of the action. They decide to tell him a sanitized version of what happened. They said, look, sire, Artemisia has struck an enemy ship. sire artemisia has struck an enemy ship artemisia has taken an enemy ship out without saying actually it's one of ours that she struck and xerxes supposedly bought it and supposedly replied woe is me my men have become women and my women have become men again not a politically correct standard by a statement by our standards but we're talking about another time and place. Indeed. So Artemisia makes this extraordinary play, but for many of the rest

of the Persian sailors, they're locked in. They're struggling to be able to escape. It's a little too good to be true that she is the only person in the Persian fleet who has such a great kill that day. We know that's not true. There are others who have kills, but it's certainly impressive and for the Persians ultimately depressing. And so this fighting, I'm sorry, I'm guessing Herodotus doesn't tell us the details of how long it lasts, but I'm guessing from what it sounds like within a day, maybe within a few hours, this is all over. It's more than a few hours. You know, it begins early in the morning and it goes until the sun is going down, going on all day.

And is there any following, as if the, let's say the ships have retreated, the ships that can retreat have retreated. Is there any follow-up action that we know about? No, I mean, you know, the two sides each go back to their base. The Greeks are exultant, the Persians not so much. Xerxes, you know, has a council of war to decide what to do. There's some talk about trying to build a mole, which is something the Persian engineers are capable of, to the island to attack the Greeks by land there. But they decide that's too risky and that instead they adopt the following plan. The land army is going to stay in Greece, but the navy is going to withdraw, taking the king

with it. Now they've taken a big risk having the Persian king actually accompany this expedition. Remember the Persian capital is in Iran and there is a winter capital in Babylon. So they are far away from their home base. The king is far away from the home base, and they want to get their most valuable asset home to safety. Without a fleet that can protect him, the king is very much at risk. Because mobility in the ancient world depends on having a navy. You know, it depends on having a navy. Land transport is much slower, more expensive, and in, except for storms, is more dangerous. So the king decides to retreat as a matter of national security, not because he's a

coward, but because this is not the asset you want to risk abroad. Besides which, on one level, he can say we succeeded. The purpose of this expedition, he could say, was to teach the Athenians a lesson. And we've taught them a lesson. We burned their temples, we plundered their city, we killed everyone we could get our hands on, and they leave the land army there. So the Athenians can't go home. They're still refugees. And the land army is still there. It's a pretty formidable force, and it has to be dealt with. So any idea that, I mean, if it's at all touted, that Xerxes runs away after the battle, it seems very much ill-founded. It is ill-founded. A part of war is propaganda. And of course, we're getting our story from the Greeks. We don't have the Persian version, to quote a famous poem.

You know, the Greek version is that Xerxes is arrogant, he's hubristic, and he's also a coward to boot, and that he runs away. Not so. He is engaging in superpower strategy. You know, what he does is a little bit like, you might remember that Churchill wanted to go over to Normandy after D-Day as soon as possible. In fact, he had to be talked out of going when it was still dangerous because he's just too valuable to take that risk. In a sense, Xerxes is not following that policy. He's going with the army because it's a different kind of political system. He has to

exercise charismatic, heroic leadership and be there fighting with the troops, but not for too long. Not when you're endangering the whole stability of the dynasty for him to be there. So he does the right thing in leaving. Absolutely. And as you say, you could probably say from his point of view, this wanting to be following the footsteps of the previous Darius and all of that lot, that it's actually mission accomplished, job done. Job done, you could say it. Now, the wiser people would say, not true. You said you were going to conquer Greece. You haven't conquered Greece. You just, you know, devastated Athens. But he could say, we'll see what happens next year. We've got a big army still in Greece. Absolutely. And in regards to saying this big army, it stays in Greece. I mean,

can we really therefore say, I know it's the end of the naval war as such, but is Salamis really decisive? I think that ultimately strategic it is, but it's decisive in the sense that Stalingrad is decisive. It doesn't end the war, but it's decisive in the sense that Stalingrad is decisive. It doesn't end the war, but it turns things around and makes it much more difficult for the enemy to win. The enemy is fighting with far fewer resources. Could the Persians still have won? Yeah, they could still have won.

They have quite a good land army. And so how do the Athenians, how do they react to news of Salamis in the immediate aftermath of the victory? Well, you know, they're thrilled they have taken casualties. So they're licking their wounds, but they are thrilled they've defeated the Persian fleet. And when they see the Persian fleet leave, they're also thrilled. So, you know, we don't have great casualty figures. We have a later source that claims the Greeks lost 40 ships and the Persians lost 200 ships.

If anything like that is true, and the Greeks would probably have a pretty good idea of this at the time, because, as I said, the ships don't sink. If anything like that is true, they will know that they've won an overwhelming victory. This is just crushing on their side. So they're going to be very happy about that. But they're still suffering quite a bit. They can't go home. It's a hard winter for them.

Absolutely. Is this a few years until they're able to go home? No, they're able to go home. The final battle, the Battle of Plataea on land, takes place the following spring. battle, the Battle of Plataea on land, takes place the following spring. So, if Salamis is the end of September of 480, by the summer of 479, the Athenians are able to go home. The Athenians also, at the time that there is a land battle, the Athenian army participates in that battle, but it is spearheaded by the Spartans. They are the hero of the land battle. The Athenian navy has sailed across the Aegean and it launches a major land sea offensive against the Persians on the coast of Anatolia

at a place called Mycale, which is near Ephesus on the central Aegean coast of Anatolia, if it's the western Aegean Turkey. And they have a great victory over the Persians there. This is the beginning of the effort that pushes the Persians back from the seacoast. So several generations earlier, the Persians had conquered the Greek city-states along the coast of Anatolia, along the Aegean and Mediterranean coast of Anatolia. And now the Greeks, led by the Athenians, are able to push them back, push them back from there and slightly afterwards to push them back from the Hellespont as well. So it changes the strategic equation in the Aegean for about the next 70 years. So next 80 years, really. So it's

really a big deal. Really very, very significant. So I see what you mean now there with Stalingrad and all that comparison. So it sounds as if Salamis, if it was like a key defensive battle, naval battle for the Athenians, whereas Mycale the next year is the key offensive battle. Yes, but it would never have been possible without the victory at Salamis. Salamis also plays an incredibly important ideological role for Athens. Athens is a democracy, but it's a young democracy. Athens has only been a democracy for 30 years. And the revolution is fragile.

Because when the Persians, when Greek city-states submit to Persia, the Persians put their friends in power. And usually their friends are oligarchies. They're small regimes that the Persians can control. They're not democracies. If Persia had won the war, the Persians wouldn't have wiped Athens out. They weren't barbarians, but they would have put a new regime in power in Athens, and it would have been an oligarchic regime, if not a tyranny. And democracy would have been done for, at least for a time. So for the Athenian

democracy, the victory at Salamis is miraculous. This protects the revolution. It comes along with the victory 10 years earlier at Marathon, the land victory. It's also politically very significant because in the ancient world, land armies tended to be made up of men of middling to great wealth. Navies were made up of the poor, the poorest people, the poorest free people, not so much slaves, but the poorest free people. And the victory of the Athenians at Salamis and then following that at Mycale was the victory of the navy, which is to say the victory of the poor. Ultimately, that was translated into political action, and it turned Athenian democracy from a democracy with an emphasis on middling wealth and great wealth to a democracy that emphasized the poor and the power of the poor, the power of ordinary people. It made Athens much more democratic. So the whole political situation of Athens at the time,

is that why, as you say, the whole victory of Salamis becomes so significant in the mindset of the Athenians, particularly during this democratic age, as it were? Yes, absolutely. And if we can turn it around, if you ask yourself how the Athenians won this victory, they won the victory by deciding to build a fleet and by organizing the people of Athens in a united effort to do something very difficult, to evacuate their homeland, never knowing they could be sure if they could come back. It's not absolutely unprecedented, but it's very unusual, and democracy makes it happen. It's a democracy that's charged with a spirit, a can-do spirit, a spirit of innovation,

a spirit of national unity, a spirit of common enterprise. The Athenians can say with some justice that the victory of Salamis is the victory of democracy. So that's why it resonates for so long. Absolutely fascinating how it's so intertwined with the whole Athenian idea of democracy. It is. And Athens, after the Persian invasion, just as in Western democracies after World War II, society becomes more egalitarian for several generations because of the contribution of ordinary people to the success of the war effort. Same thing happens in Athens. There you go. Those parallels in history are always absolutely remarkable and astonishing barry your book on salamis is called it's called the battle of salamis the naval engagement that saved greece and western civilization fantastic and i will also mention your great podcast, Antiquitas. Please do and go and have a listen.

I certainly cover this on the podcast and talk more about Themistocles, the brains behind the operation. Barry, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Thank you. Thank you.