The Battle of Slamis: A Brief Summary

Battle of Salamis                            12/4/07

•    Naval battle between Greeks and Persians, which took place in September 480 B.C.
•    Themistokles – leader of Greece who had large Navy, primary weapon for Grecian city states
•    It was fought to the east of the island of Salamis in the gulf of Corinth

•    The Greeks took advantage of the narrow areas of water and forced the larger Persian fleet through narrow areas so their numbers had no effect.
•    When the Greek navy heard the news of Thermopylae, they retreated to Athens in order to help with the evacuation taking place there.

•    Herodotus reports that there were 378 Greek ships at Salamis, broken down by city-state (as indicated in the table); however, his numbers only add to 366
City    Number of Ships    City
Number of Ships
Athens    180    Corinth    40
Aegina    30    Chalcis    20
Megara    20    Sparta    16
Sicyon    15    Epidaurus    10
Eretia    7    Ambrcia    7
Troizen    5    Naxos    4
Leucas    3    Hermione    3
Styra    2    Cythnus    2
Ceos    2    Melos    2
Siphnus    1    Serifos    1
Croton    1        
Total            366

•    The fleet was effectively under the command of Themistocles, but nominally led by the Spartan Eurybiades
•    This was because, in any joint Greek military venture, the Spartans insisted they be in command as they are the best warriors.
•    The much larger Persian fleet consisted according to some modern estimates of 650-800 ships, although their original invasion force consisted of many more ships (1,207) that had since been lost due to storms in the Aegean Sea.
•    With an average of 200 men per ship onboard, the Persian naval force would be at least 200,000 men, without taking into account the numerous auxiliary vessels.
•    Xerxes set up a throne on the shore because he was so sure his Persians would win.
•    Spartans continued to argue with Themistocles about the necessity of fighting at Salamis. They still wanted to fight the battle closer to Corinth, so that they could retreat to the mainland in case of a defeat, or withdraw completely and let the Persians attack them by land.

The Battle

Trireme - was fast and agile, and became the dominant warship in the Mediterranean

•    Both sides had marines on their ships (the Greeks with fully armed hoplites, and arrows and javelins also flew across the narrow strait.
•    The wave motion made the archers on the Phoenician ships miss their target, thus giving advantage to the hoplites who fought hand to hand.
•    The Greek triremes were outfitted with the "embolon", a long bronze protrusion fitted to the prow at water level, which enabled them to ram and sink enemy ships more easily than they could be sunk themselves.
•    When going into battle Greeks sang a portion of Aechylus’ The Persians, known as the “paean”
•    Persians tried to retreat, but got caught in the narrow straiht and were easy prey for the Greeks

After the Battle

•    Around 200 Persian ships were sunk
•    Persians suffered much more casualties then the greeks as they didn’t know how to swim.
•    A borther of Xerxes dies

Results of battle

•    Turning point of Persian wars
•    Persia’s army was completely destroyed, forced Xerxes to retreat as he couldn’t supply his huge army in a resource-poor country such as Greece.
•    Viewed as THE most important battle in all of human history, as Greece as able to defeat Persia, and insure that Democracy would be the way they were governed. Greek’s democracy laid the foundation for modern Western Society