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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Few periods in all ancient history are more familiar than the months from May to September of 480 b.c., when the enormous army and navy of Xerxes, King of the Persians, crossed from Asia to Europe and bore down upon the heart of Greece. Few battles are more famous than Salamis, where Xerxes, after carrying all before him, crushing Leonidas at Thermopylai and forcing the Greek fleet to withdraw from Artemision, sacking and burning Athens, saw his navy defeated by a far smaller force and the tide of Persian might begin to ebb. How did the Greeks prepare to face the Persian threat, the greatest they had ever met, and what planning achieved this remarkable result?
page 5 note 1 vii. 139–44.
page 7 note 1 Class. Review, x (1896), 415–16.Google Scholar
page 7 note 2 ii. 31. 1.
page 7 note 3 I have not talked with Titires myself, and rely here on reports in the village and the accounts of various Greek journalists. Some villagers believe the stone came from the ruins of the old church, the source of a number of inscriptions.
page 9 note 1 Cf. Hdt. vii. 173.Google Scholar
page 9 note 2 Id. vii. 175; Diod. xi. 3. 9, 4. 1.Google Scholar
page 10 note 1 Them. 10. 4.Google Scholar
page 10 note 2 Similarly, he does not date the Athenian decision to build a fleet; we learn that it was in the archonship of Nikodemos (483/2 b.c.) from Aristotle, , Ath. Pol. 23. 7Google Scholar. Again, in describing how Xerxes received tokens of submission from Greek states while he was at Therme, Herodotos mentions an oath sworn by loyal Greeks against the Medizers (vii. 32). The actual date of the oath seems to have been before Plataia, in 479 b.c.; cf. Tod, M. N., Greek Historical Inscriptions, ii, no. 204, and pp. 306–7Google Scholar, but both the text and the interpretation are in need of revision.
page 10 note 3 viii. 41.
page 10 note 4 viii. 40.
page 11 note 1 127 ships plus (?) 53, Hdt. viii. 1 and 14. 1Google Scholar (another 20 Athenian ships were manned by the Chalkidians); 140 ships, Ephoros in Diod. xi. 12. 4Google Scholar; 60 ships, Isok. iv. 90.
page 12 note 1 Aesch. Pers. 402–5.Google Scholar
page 12 note 2 Hdt. vii. 141. 3–4.Google Scholar
page 12 note 3 Ibid. 142.
page 12 note 4 Id. viii. 51. 2.
page 12 note 5 Cf. id. vii. 142. 1.
page 12 note 6 Id. viii. 33, 35–39.
page 13 note 1 Cf. Arisi. Ath. Pol. 23. 1.Google Scholar
page 13 note 2 τοὺς δ⋯ [⋯τίμους ⋯πιτίμους εἶναι …], or the like. Cf., for example, Andok. i. 73, 107Google Scholar; Xen. Hell. ii. 2. 11Google Scholar; Lys. xxv. 27.Google Scholar
page 13 note 3 Hdt. viii. 109. 3.Google Scholar
page 14 note 1 Ibid. 41. 2–3.
page 14 note 2 ‘Somewhat less than two-thirds of 400’, according to Thuc. i. 74. 1Google Scholar (keeping the manuscript reading), i.e. less than 266; less than 252 if Herodotos' total of 378 for the Greeks is accepted (viii. 48), or 244 if we take the sum of his items (366).
page 14 note 3 Half of the Athenian ships at Artemision were casualties (Hdt. viii. 18)Google Scholar. Further evidence for the policy of keeping back a sizeable reserve is seen in the greater numbers at Salamis from other cities in and near the Saronic Gulf, even after the making up of losses at Artemision: Aigina, , 30–18Google Scholar; Epidauros, , 10–8Google Scholar; Hermione, , 3–0Google Scholar (Hdt. viii. 1, 43, 46)Google Scholar. Unlike ships from farther away these cannot be explained as late arrivals.
page 14 note 4 Plut. Them. 14. 2.Google Scholar
page 14 note 5 Hdt. viii. 95Google Scholar, Plut. Arist, 9. 1.Google Scholar
page 15 note 1 On the formal character of this position, see my ‘Seniority in the Stratêgia’, Trans. Am. Philol. Assoc. lxxxvi (1955), 63ffGoogle Scholar. The chairman is naturally an Athenian representative to the allied congress.
page 15 note 2 Plut. Them. 22.Google Scholar
page 15 note 3 There were at least two other statues of Themistokles in Athens, both in company with Miltiades: in the Prytaneion (Paus. i. 18. 3)Google Scholar, and in the Theatre of Dionysos (Schol. Aristid., vol. iii. 535 f. Dindorf). There is no agreement on the location of the original of the herm of Themistokles found at Ostia, though stylistically it has been dated to about 460 b.c.; see Miltner, F., Jahreshefte des oest. arch. Inst. xxxix (1952), 70 ff.Google Scholar; Bieber, M., Am. Journ. Arch. lviii (1954), 282ff.Google Scholar; Richter, G. M. A., ‘Greek Portraits’, Coll. Latomus, xx (1955), 16ffGoogle Scholar. None the less one may well wonder if it could not be as much as 15 years older than 460 b.c. Demosthenes, xxiii. 196, seems to argue against the existence of a public statue of Themistokles while he was still in Athens.
page 15 note 4 Thuc. i. 138. 6.Google Scholar
page 15 note 5 Paus. i. 1. 2, 26. 4.Google Scholar
page 15 note 6 Cf. I.G. ii 2. 212. 3Google Scholar (= Tod, M. N., G.H.I. ii, no. 167)Google Scholar; 291. 6; etc.
page 15 note 7 Them. 32. 6.Google Scholar
page 15 note 8 vii. 144. 3.
page 16 note 1 i. 18. 2.
page 16 note 2 i. 74. 2.
page 16 note 3 4. 93 ff.
page 16 note 4 ii. 30, εἰς τ⋯ς να⋯ς ⋯μβάντες ⋯π' 'Αρτεμίσιον ⋯βοήθησαν. Cf. lines 41–42 of the decree, βοηθεῖν ⋯π⋯ τ⋯ 'Αρτεμ|[ί]σιον.
page 16 note 5 xix. 303, 311. Demosthenes, as A. E. Raubitschek points out, is unlikely to have passed over in silence the fact that Aischines used recent forgeries for his bombast. On the problem of authenticity, see below, n. 9.
page 16 note 6 In Leocr. 77, 81.Google Scholar
page 16 note 7 vii. 132. 2.
page 16 note 8 Tod, M. N., G.H.I. ii, no. 204.Google Scholar
page 16 note 9 It is likely to be suggested that the decree is, in fact, a fourth-century creation, but concrete arguments will have to be brought forward. The following are points in favour of a fifth-century source: (1) the implicit date of the decree; (2) the commitment of only half the fleet to Artemision; (3) the orders for the priestesses to stay on the acropolis; (4) the trierarchs chosen for qualities of command, not wealth; (5) a larger number of marines than was used even fifty years later, and one disagreeing with Plutarch's figure (14) for Salamis (Them. 14. 2)Google Scholar; (6) the term τάξις for a division of men forming a ship's crew, used elsewhere only in Aesch. Pers. 380 f.; (7) ‘Almighty’, παγκρατής, of Zeus, an epithet most prominent in Aeschylus; and (8) the reconciliation with the ostracized in two stages. But of course there is much more to be said, pro and con. I have tried here to explore the historical implications, taking the document at its face value.
page 17 note 1 The key passage is in Hypereides, , Against Athenogenes, 29–33Google Scholar; for the full discussion, see pp. 206–9 of Hesperia, xxix (1960)Google Scholar. Against the suggestion made by Paraskevaïdes, M. in Kathemerine of Athens, 6 06 1960Google Scholar, and Eikones, 1 07 1960, p. 20Google Scholar (repeated in The Times, 14 06 1960)Google Scholar, that the inscription was set up as part of an effort to revive pan-Hellenic sentiment in support of Alexander's campaigns against the Persians, is the fact that, in the atmosphere of the time, the document was more pro-Athenian, and hence anti-Macedonian, than anti-Persian.
page 17 note 2 Paus. ii. 31.Google Scholar
page 18 note 1 xlvi. 192 (ii. 256 f. Dindorf).
page 18 note 2 i. 138. 3.