These bodies of troop were incredibly expensive, cumbersome, and required a massive supply of food and equipment for the entirety of their campaigns which often lasted years. Hannibal's invasion of the Italian peninsula in 218 B.C. lasted fifteen years. To command an army of either ancient Greece, Rome, or Persia was the highest honor for an individual. To succeed in battle was to guarantee one's place in the annals of heroes and legends to be cherished for generations. To lose, on the other hand, could mean death in the worst case scenario, or a lifetime of shame for the losing general and his progeny at best. Confronted with these two extremes, it is no wonder that planned, pitched battles between two fully deployed armies were rare. It is against this tendency that we must consider the choices of generals to gamble everything upon major, decisive battles aimed at the complete annihilation of their enemy's forces.
Bust of Themistocles
We begin with the decisive battle at Salamis between the Greek city-state alliance, led by Athens and Sparta, more or less commanded by the half-Athenian statesman, Themistocles, and the Persian empire, commanded by Xerxes.
The Persian emperor Darius crushed the Ionian Revolt in 493 B.C., and then swore an oath to punish the Athenians who had supported the revolt. Herodotus tells us that one of Darius' slaves had the peculiar task of whispering into the emperor's ear, "Sire, remember the Athenians," every single night at dinner. The Lord of Persia is said to have fumed each and every time he heard these words. The hatred Darius felt for the intransigent Athenians was to shake the foundations of the Greek and Aegean civilizations for generations to come.
One man in particular, Themistocles, himself only half Athenian, was to shepherd his fellow citizens during their darkest hours and achieve one of the greatest military victories in history. His brilliant long-term strategy secured for Athens a fighting chance when their hour of doom was upon them, but it was his insistence for, and command of, the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. that would be the pinnacle of his remarkable career.
First, we must travel back to 490 B.C. Darius invaded Greece with roughly 35,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and a fleet of transport and supply ships. The Persian army landed at the Bay of Marathon where the 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataens, under the generalship of the Athenian, Miltiades, were waiting for them. The battle that ensued began as a clear mismatch in favor of the more numerous Persian army, but ended with a stunning Greek victory thanks the the decisive battle plan that Miltiades was able to perform.
With the Persians defeated and gone, the Greeks reveled in their victory, knowing full well that they had snatched their freedom from the jaws of a tyrannical host. In Athens, most of the citizens considered the Persian menace to no longer pose a threat. One man, Themistocles, knew instinctively however that the Persians would be back in the near future seeking retribution. Any emperor would seek revenge for the loss suffered at Marathon for both practical and symbolic reasons. For Darius, revenge would not prove attainable, as he died before he could invade again. The imperial mantle fell to his son, Xerxes, instead.
Prior to the Persian invasion of Greece in 481/0 B.C., the Athenians struck an unusually large vein of silver at their colonial mining city of Laurium in 483 B.C. This instance of good fortune provided Themistocles with a rare opportunity to apply his skill as a statesman. Like a joint-stock venture, the Athenian assembly was on the verge of voting to share the new silver wealth proportionally between all of the city-state's citizens. Themistocles, on the other hand, knew that however honorable such a plan might be, it would be a missed opportunity for Athens to protect herself from the future Persian menace. To seize such an opportunity, and to protect his city, Themistocles wanted to build a massive Athenian navy of combat triremes. Keep in mind, again, that most Athenians did not think another Persian invasion of mainland Greece to be an imminent threat, so Themistocles needed to find a more persuasive image to support his argument. The answer? Aegina. This island city-state was located south-west of the Athenian port of Piraeus and the two cities were perpetual enemies. In fact, at the time of this debate concerning the silver wealth, Athens and Aegina were locked in a simmering feud. So Themistocles linked together his goal of building a massive navy with the threat of Aegina's likely harassment of Athenian trade and blockade of merchant shipping lanes.
The Athenian Assembly agreed and within two years' time, Themistocles' navy of roughly 200 triremes was built. The timing of his achievement could not have been better. As of spring 480 B.C. Xerxes has amassed a land invasion force of roughly 250,000-300,000 men and 1,200 ships, the bulk of which were offensive, naval warfare ships. This entire invasion force -- the largest in history until the allied invasion of Nazi occupied Normandy on 6 June 1944 -- was bent on the destruction of Greek civilization, and subjugation of its people.
Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, swept down through Thessaly, defeated and conquered the ancient, religious city-state of Thebes, and brought the defeated remnants of that proud city over to the Persian cause. After Thessaly and the Theban defeat, Xerxes won two major battles, one on land and one at sea, at the simultaneous battles of Thermopylae and Artemesium. With no military answer to this invasion force capable of meeting Xerxes in battle, the Greek world north of the Peloponnese no longer existed. Themistocles had convinced the Athenians to desert their city at this time or face the wrath of the Persians. Xerxes marched into Attica (the countryside of Athens), devastated the crops and farmland, and finally marched through the gates of the now uninhabited city-state of Athens. The Persians killed anyone who remained and burnt the Acropolis to the ground.
Persian land and naval invasion routes 481-0 B.C.
Preceding this event, Themistocles had convinced his countrymen to evacuate the city, noting to the distraught Athenians that a city can -- and in this case, must -- live on in the people, not the physical walls or buildings that they once called Athens. Some people said, "Why don't we march out and meet the Persians on the battlefield? We won a decade ago at Marathon." Themistocles answered that they would be facing a quarter of a million Persians, not the 35,000 from a decade ago, and the Greeks would be wiped out. "Why don't we barricade ourselves within the city walls of Athens?" some asked. Themistocles answered that they would be cut off from re-supply from the sea and land as a land force of 250,000 men and 1,200 triremes could easily encircle Athens and her port of Piraeus. The other Greek leaders wanted to build a defensive wall across the Corinthian isthmus and fortify the Peloponnese with what remaining land and naval forces they had. Themistocles warned them that the Persians would simply sail around the Peloponnese and push through the Saronic gulf, thus bypassing the defensive wall and overwhelming any naval presence the Greeks could muster. Most importantly, Themistocles stressed that the last plan was impractical because there were no ports sufficiently protected enough to allow for such a passive strategy to succeed. Themistocles reasoned that only a purely offensive, naval battle would free the Greeks from their present danger. And this is how Themistocles convinced the Hellenes to fight a decisive battle at the island of Salamis, within the narrow straits between the rocky shores.
(Left) Battle dispositions and maneuvers of Greeks and Persians at Salamis; (Above) Satellite image of Salamis and narrow straits where battle was fought.
After convincing the Greeks to fight this battle, Themistocles used a bit of disinformation to likewise bring Xerxes to battle as well. He sent a messenger up to the great Persian king, the messenger obviously posing as a traitor seeking safety and reward. Keep in mind that Xerxes had won at Thermopylae in large part due to the traitorous Greek counsel of Ephialtes who had shown a secret goat path to the Persians which wound behind the Spartan and Greek force blocking the pass. It is no wonder that Xerxes, when presented with another tip for defeating the Greeks, this time absolutely, he jumped at the opportunity without question. The double-agent of Themistocles told Xerxes that the time to strike the Greek navy was at hand and that the Persian king must act decisively before the Greeks sail away to Sicily or some other colonial outpost.
Facing a Persian fleet of roughly 1,100-1,200 triremes, Themistocles arrayed the combined Greek naval forces in a short, compact line of triremes perpendicular to the incoming Persian fleet. Xerxes pushed his main body of ships into the strait while swinging a smaller detachment of Egyptian ships around the island to block any retreat by the Greeks. The Corinthian section of the Greek navy was to hold off this back-door menace while the main body, commanded by Themistocles, was to spring its trap upon the cumbersome and numerous Persian body. The Greek ships were larger and more unwieldy than the fast Persian ships, but it was the large brass rams on the front of the Greek ships that gave Themistocles a definitive advantage in the narrow straits. As soon as Xerxes fleet entered the narrow body of water, they were struck from the flank by the Greek triremes. Unable to maneuver, the Persian fleet was decimated. As the front line of Persian ships was caught off guard, they tried to back water and retreat but instead fouled their oars with those ships of the second and third lines. To make matters worse, a wedge of Greek ships split the entire Persian fleet in two as it cleaved its way through the now immobile Persian force.
Numbers are sketchy, but most historians agree that around 250-300 Persian ships sank that day and no less than 70,000-80,000 Persian sailors and marines lost their lives. This was to be the worst naval defeat in European and Mediterranean affairs, even more devastating than the Ottoman defeat at the battle of Lepanto in 1571.
The defeat at Salamis crippled Xerxes' invasion force. No longer able to guarantee his supply train for his army, Xerxes took the main portion of the invasion force and returned to Persia with the remainder of his fleet. He left a large force of infantry behind under the command of Mardonius to fight the Greeks, and the following summer in 479 B.C., such a battle took place on the plains of Platea. A large force of Greek city-states marched together out of the Peloponnese and met the Persian army which had been cut off from its lines of supply and communication, and had grown tired of conquest. The Greek hoplites won a decisive victory and, for all intents and purposes, the Persian menace would not threaten the Greek world for another sixty years. Even then, the Persians were invited by the Spartans and the Peloponnesian League to help defeat the Athenian empire at the tail end of the devastating Great Peloponnesian War.
For our consideration, we must look to Themistocles as a statesman of singular vision and decisiveness. His ability to convince his countrymen to evacuate their city in exchange for the open seas and an uncertain future, and his successful persuasion of the Hellenic alliance to fight one decisive battle at Salamis, against all odds, were two of history's more remarkable diplomatic achievements. His cool-headed plan of attack within the narrow straits at Salamis, and his subsequent command of the ensuing battle, were a testament to his superb generalship. More than any other consideration, his confident choice to fight a decisive battle at Salamis is most impressive. There is no doubt that to lose at Salamis would have meant certain death and subjugation for the entire Greek civilization from that day forth. Judging a decisive battle to be a reasonable alternative to flight is the most remarkable achievement Themistocles has on his record of stunning accolades. And that is why he serves as our first of three installments of history's most noteworthy victories at decisive battles.
Next time, we look at the three successive victories of the Carthaginian General, Hannibal Barca:the River Ticinus, Lake Trasimene, and the glorious battle of Cannae. These victories took place during the early years of Hannibal's fifteen-year invasion of the Roman republic.
