The battle of Salamis

Xerxes’ invasion had already broken through the Greek defence at Thermopylae. The naval engagements at Artemisium had been inconclusive, and the Persians had occupied Athens. The Greek fleet gathered at Salamis, where Athenian women and children had been taken for safety. The question was now whether the Greeks should remain there or withdraw towards the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow land connection leading into the Peloponnese.

This was not simply a choice of battlefield. Different members of the alliance wanted to defend different places. Many Peloponnesian commanders feared that staying at Salamis would leave their own homeland exposed. The Athenians, Aeginetans and Megarians argued for remaining. Keeping the alliance together was therefore part of winning the battle.

Themistocles makes the case for narrow waters

Themistocles was the Athenian naval leader, but the overall Greek commander was the Spartan Eurybiades. Themistocles had to persuade him and the other commanders rather than simply issue orders.

His central argument was that the Greeks should fight where the Persian advantage in numbers would matter least. In open water, a larger fleet had more room to deploy its ships and manoeuvre. In a strait, there was less room for many ships to operate effectively at once. The smaller Greek fleet could therefore fight on more favourable terms.

Themistocles also argued that remaining at Salamis would protect the evacuated families and help defend the Peloponnese without drawing the enemy towards the Isthmus. His strategy connected the choice of sea-room with the wider defence of Greece.

Herodotus presents his persuasion as forceful and sometimes threatening. Themistocles warned that, if the allies withdrew, the Athenians would take their households and sail away to Italy. Losing the Athenian ships would seriously weaken the alliance. Eurybiades agreed to remain, but arguments about withdrawal later resumed.

Deception helps force an engagement

When the debate again turned against him, Themistocles sent Sicinnus, a member of his household, secretly to the Persian commanders. Sicinnus claimed that Themistocles favoured Xerxes and that the divided, frightened Greeks were preparing to flee. He urged the Persians to prevent their escape.

The purpose was to make an attack seem like an easy opportunity for Xerxes while making Greek withdrawal more difficult. Themistocles was trying to turn an unstable alliance into a fleet committed to fighting at Salamis.

This deception is a famous part of the ancient account, but it should not be treated as the only explanation for the Persian decision. Xerxes also faced pressure to act after delays in Attica and had reason to believe that Greek morale and unity were weak. Themistocles’ importance lay in combining persuasion, an advantageous battlefield and a calculated attempt to influence the enemy.

Artemisia advises caution; Xerxes chooses battle

Artemisia was the ruler of Halicarnassus and other communities in the eastern Aegean, and a naval commander serving in Xerxes’ fleet. She supplied five triremes, oared warships, to the Persian force. When Xerxes consulted his commanders, she argued against an immediate sea battle, unlike the others who favoured fighting.

Her advice was strategic rather than timid. She argued that Xerxes already held Athens and could achieve more by waiting or advancing towards the Peloponnese. In her view, shortages of food and competing loyalties would eventually break up the Greek alliance. She also warned that damage to the Persian fleet could harm the army’s campaign.

Herodotus reports that Xerxes admired her judgement but nevertheless followed the majority’s advice. He believed his presence would make his sailors fight better than they had at Artemisium and intended to watch the battle himself.

Artemisia’s argument recognised that Persian strength did not make a naval engagement necessary. Xerxes’ decision, by contrast, depended on confidence that an immediate attack would destroy Greek resistance. His miscalculation was to accept a battle in waters that reduced his fleet’s advantages.

Fighting in the Salamis channel

During the night before the battle, the Persian fleet moved closer to the Greeks. The precise deployment and sequence of manoeuvres remain disputed: the ancient narratives do not provide a single clear reconstruction. The secure central point is that Xerxes committed his larger fleet to restricted waters.

The fighting was chiefly a ramming battle. Ships sought to strike and damage enemy vessels rather than relying primarily on soldiers boarding them and fighting on their decks. There was enough room for ramming attacks, but not enough for Persian numbers and experience to have their full effect.

The battle became a Persian rout, with heavy losses of ships and men. Men drowned or were killed as they struggled ashore. A Persian infantry force stranded on the nearby island of Psyttaleia was also killed. Xerxes watched from Mount Aegaleos, with scribes recording the action: the victory he had expected to witness instead became a major defeat.

Artemisia escapes and wins mistaken praise

Herodotus describes Artemisia’s ship being pursued by an Athenian trireme during the confusion of the battle. Friendly ships blocked her route ahead. She rammed and sank a ship from her own side, a Calyndian vessel carrying its king, Damasithymus.

Seeing her attack a Persian-allied ship, the Athenian commander assumed that she was either Greek or had deserted to the Greek side. He abandoned the pursuit, allowing her to escape. Herodotus does not establish whether she chose that particular victim because of a previous quarrel or because its ship happened to be in her path.

The same action also increased Xerxes’ admiration for her. Watching from land, he and his attendants mistakenly believed that she had sunk an enemy vessel. Herodotus reports that nobody aboard the sunken ship survived to expose what had really happened. Xerxes is said to have exclaimed, ‘My men have behaved like women, my women like men!’ This expresses a gender stereotype linking courage with men, rather than an objective judgement of military ability.

Artemisia’s role therefore needs two separate judgements. Before the battle, she offered a cautious strategy that Xerxes ignored. During the battle, her resourcefulness helped her survive, but at the expense of an allied ship. The praise she received depended on a misunderstanding: personal success was not the same as success for the Persian fleet.

Why Salamis was a turning point

Salamis gave the Greeks their first victory in the invasion of 480–479 BCE and prevented Xerxes from eliminating their naval resistance. The subsequent withdrawal of his fleet left Persian success dependent on the army remaining in Greece under Mardonius.

The war was not over. In 479 BCE, the Greeks defeated Mardonius’ army at Plataea, while another victory at Mycale defeated a Persian amphibious force in western Anatolia. Together, these victories secured European Greece against Persian conquest.

Salamis was therefore decisive as a turning point, not as a complete conclusion to the war. It changed the military situation and preserved the possibility of further Greek victories. The result also showed the importance of keeping an alliance together and choosing conditions that reduced an opponent’s strengths.

Remembering victory through monuments and drama

A commemorative trophy was erected on Cynosura, a headland at Salamis. This gave the victory a physical marker in the landscape. Its presence records commemoration, but does not by itself prove the exact position or movements of the fleets.

Salamis was also remembered through Aeschylus’ tragedy Persians, performed in 472 BCE, only eight years after the battle. Its account of the fighting takes the form of a messenger’s report to the Persian court at Susa. This makes the consequences of Greek victory visible through the suffering of the defeated side rather than through a straightforward Greek victory speech.

Monument and drama commemorated the same event differently: the trophy marked victory in a place, while theatrical performance retold it for an audience and explored its human consequences. Ancient accounts also celebrate individuals and contain dramatic storytelling. They help explain how Salamis was remembered, but require care when reconstructing the exact course of the battle.