Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy (10 page)

CHAPTER 4

Holding the Pass
[SUMMER , 480 B.C.]

—Plutarch

 

 

 

 

THREE FAST TRIREMES HAD GONE AHEAD TO ESTABLISH A guard post on Skiathos, an island at the entrance to the Artemisium channel. The traditional lookout point on the westernmost heights of Skiathos commanded a view of the seaway to the north that would shortly be filled with the ships of Xerxes’ armada. The Greeks set up a chain of beacons from Skiathos across the hilltops of Euboea so that the watchers from the three triremes—one from Athens, the others from Aegina and Troezen—could flash news by fire signal to the main Greek fleet.

While the lookouts on the island were scanning the northern approaches, an advance squadron of ten fast Phoenician triremes managed to take them by surprise. Running for their lives, the hapless Greeks scrambled into their ships and tried to escape. The triremes from Troezen and Aegina had no chance, though one of the Aeginetan marines put up such a heroic fight that the admiring Phoenicians bandaged his wounds and kept him with them as a sort of talisman. Only the Athenian trireme managed to break through to the open sea. Hotly pursued by the enemy, the trierarch Phormos and his crew raced northward along the mountainous Magnesian coast, outrowing Xerxes’ fastest ships for half a day. At last, with Mount Olympus in view, the Athenians risked a landing. They jumped out at Tempe and fled up the narrow gorge of the Peneus River. The Phoenicians captured only the empty hull abandoned at the water’s edge. It was the first Athenian trireme to fall into enemy hands, but Phormos and company reached home safely after a long trek overland.

Once the Phoenician scout ships returned to Therma, the entire Persian armada began its cruise southward. The fleet could reach Thermopylae in just three days of rowing, while the army’s march through Thessaly would require fourteen. So Xerxes had told his naval commanders to wait eleven days after his departure before setting out. In their anxiety to reach the rendezvous on time, the commanders unwisely bypassed the long strand south of Mount Ossa, the last haven that could accommodate all their ships. Instead they pushed forward down the rocky Magnesian coast as long as daylight lasted. Nightfall caught them below the heights of Mount Pelion, where only a few short beaches lay between slopes that plunged steeply into the sea. On this hostile shore the armada had to disperse among many small mooring places. At some beaches the triremes tied up eight deep, with the outermost ships swinging at anchor far out from land.

Earlier that summer the Delphic Oracle had advised, “Pray to the winds.” Next morning those prayers were answered. A violent northeasterly gale, known locally as a “Hellesponter,” struck the Magnesian coast. For three days Xerxes’ triremes were helplessly smashed against the rocks while the Magi offered prayers to quiet the storm. The winds wrecked many of the Great King’s triremes and supply ships, scattering the shattered hulks far and wide. The dwellers along the Magnesian coast later combed the beaches for gold cups and other Persian treasure that washed up in the surf.

The allied Greek fleet spent the three days of the storm safely sheltered in the lee of Euboea. They learned of the disaster to the Persians from watchers on the hills and the seaward coast. When the gale finally blew itself out, the Greek fleet resumed its voyage toward Artemisium, fervently hoping that the winds had cut Xerxes’ navy down to size. As the Greeks rowed past Thermopylae, they stopped to confer with Leonidas, whose army of four thousand was busy repairing the ancient fortifications in the pass. All were confident that the main Greek army would appear any day to reinforce Leonidas’ small contingent. Before proceeding on to Artemisium, the commanders of the fleet left a galley at the Hot Gates to carry dispatches from Leonidas if need arose. They chose for this mission an Athenian triakontor commanded by a citizen named Abronichus. At the same time a local boat from a town near Thermopylae joined the Greek fleet. It would observe the naval actions at Artemisium and report to Leonidas. These slender links would connect the Greek efforts to hold the Persians by land and by sea.

Several more hours of rowing brought the Greeks to their destination. Artemisium was a long curving beach on the northern shore of Euboea, facing the channel that had been since time immemorial the maritime gateway to central Greece. A temple of Artemis, the virgin huntress, overlooked the golden sands. Themistocles venerated this goddess, calling her Artemis Aristoboule or “Artemis of Best Counsel.” Religious conviction as well as strategy had marked out Artemisium as the right place to block the passage of Xerxes’ armada.

The Greek fleet approached Artemisium late in the day, as the battered Persian survivors of the storm were rounding Cape Sepias and entering the channel from the other end. On the northern coast there was no long beach such as the Greeks would occupy at Artemisium. Instead the contingents of Xerxes’ fleet occupied widely separated stations at a string of little beaches known as Aphetai (“Starting Places”). From one of these beaches Jason and his Argonauts had launched the legendary
Argo
on their quest for the Golden Fleece. Themistocles’ calculations proved correct: the huge number of the Persian ships was a weakness, since few harbors or beaches could hold them all.

Then through the afternoon haze appeared fifteen Persian ships rowing directly across the channel toward the Greeks. Was it a mad challenge? Or an attempt at a parley? Before the ships reached them, the Greeks realized the truth. These late arrivals, overlooking the disorganized Persian fleet at Aphetai, had mistaken the Greek fleet for their own and were attempting to join it. The newcomers were immediately surrounded and escorted back to Artemisium. Among the captured crews was a commander from Cyprus who had lost eleven of his ships to the storm. He was now losing the twelfth and last to his own carelessness. After questioning, the prisoners were shackled and sent off to the Isthmus.

That night some fifty thousand Greeks camped at Artemisium. Grateful for the fleet’s protection of their island, the Euboeans who lived at Histiaea and other neighboring towns brought livestock, firewood, and other provisions to feed the crews and fighting men. The Athenian division of the camp covered the eastern half of the waterfront. There were 271 Greek triremes drawn up at the water’s edge that night, more than half of them Athenian. In recognition of their great contributions, the Spartan admiral had awarded them the coveted post of honor on the right wing. Eleven other city-states contributed the remainder of the Greek ships. Highest in prestige were the ten Spartan triremes. From elsewhere in the Peloponnese came triremes from Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus, and Troezen. Central Greece was represented only by triremes from Megara and old-fashioned pentekontors or fifty-oared galleys from Opuntian Locris. The fleet also included ships from the islands of Aegina, Euboea, and Keos. At the west end of the beach camped the Corinthians, whose forty triremes would hold the left wing in the Greek battle line.

ARTEMISIUM AND THERMOPYLAE, 480 B.C.

Athens alone had mobilized its entire citizen body for the naval effort. Young Cimon and his fellow horsemen were now riders to the sea. The hoplites of Athens had traded their shields and spears for rowing pads and oars. As for the thousands of common citizens, the naval expedition had given them for the first time a feeling of true equality with horsemen and hoplites. Oars were great levelers. Rowing demanded perfect unison of action, and the discipline inevitably generated a powerful unity of spirit. Rich and poor shared the same callused palms, blistered buttocks, and stiff muscles, as well as the same hopes and fears for the future. A new unified Athens was being forged on the decks and rowing thwarts of the fleet.

Across the water glimmered other fires, clusters of twinkling lights that stretched for miles. There was no danger that the Persians would slip by them in the night—Xerxes had ordered his admirals to annihilate the Greeks down to the last fire-signaler. They had not expected the Greeks to confront them but were happy to take advantage of their rashness. The ten miles of open water in the Artemisium channel would be the arena for the coming contest.

That evening a deserter from Xerxes’ armada reached the Greek camp in a small boat. He was a famous diver named Skyllias of Skione. For centuries divers around the Aegean Sea had fished for sponges, pearls, coral, and valuables from sunken wrecks. Over the generations they developed the skill and stamina to work for long periods at depths of one hundred feet or more. The trade ran in families, though girls usually gave up diving after marriage. As protection from the dangers of the deep the divers smeared their bodies with olive oil and carried knives. In time their eyes became bloodshot and their bodies bent, but the treasure recovered from a single shipwreck could make a family rich.

War fleets used divers for reconnaissance, salvage, and clandestine operations. Skyllias had been pressed into Persian service as Xerxes passed through his home territory in northern Greece, and he had helped salvage some of the Persian treasure lost during the recent storm off the Magnesian coast. Seeing the campfires of fellow Greeks across the water, he seized the chance to warn them of a new danger. The Persians had sent a squadron of triremes south along the seaward coast of Euboea, hoping to outflank the Greeks’ position. No one had anticipated such a move. Whether this roving squadron circled back to Artemisium or pressed ahead to Attica and the Saronic Gulf, the success of the Greek naval mission was now in jeopardy.

Eurybiades called a meeting of the allied commanders to debate strategy. Most voted to keep their ships ashore and let the enemy make the first move. Themistocles disagreed. In his view, everything favored a bold move. The Greeks, though few, were united. The Persian forces were divided among many mooring places and were further depleted by the absence of the division that was making its way around Euboea. With sublime confidence Themistocles told the other commanders that he wanted to test Persian seamanship. Were Xerxes’ steersmen and crews adept at breaking through the line with the
diekplous
or “rowing through” maneuver? Or at encircling an enemy with the simpler
periplous
or “rowing around”? These were the lethal maneuvers that could expose the vulnerable sterns and flanks of the Greek triremes to the Persian rams.

Themistocles proposed to use science and skill to overcome the Greeks’ disadvantage in numbers. He expected no close coordination among the various squadrons in the enemy armada. It also seemed likely that the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and the rest would count not on their steersmen but on their marines. In that case they would fight in the old-fashioned way, with ships locked together and armed men using their decks as a battleground. True, the Persian ships outnumbered the Greeks’ by more than three to one, and in open water such as the Artemisium channel the larger fleet usually won by simply enveloping the smaller. But Themistocles had devised a maneuver that he believed would protect the Greeks from defeat.