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After winning on land through much of Greece, Persian King Xerxes I was determined to destroy the Greek navy. Big mistake. The encounter at Salamis killed his dreams of conquest

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Transcript

Lead: After winning on land through much of Greece, Persian King Xerxes I was determined to destroy the Greek navy. Big mistake. The encounter at Salamis killed his dreams of conquest.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After the Persians sacked Athens in 480 BCE during the Greco-Persian Wars, the Greek naval fleet (mostly Athenian ships) as well as a good bit of the City population, sought safety on Salamis, an island off the Greek mainland. The rocky, mountainous isle is a crescent shaped 27 square miles and about ten miles west of Athens in the Saronic Gulf.

Somehow, possibly by a trick message, the Greek commander Themistocles was able to lure the Persian fleet of about 400 ships into the narrow strait between the island and the mainland. Themistocles instructed his navy to back up and feint a retreat further into the bay. Lusting for that final decisive victory, Persian King Xerxes I, watching from a hill, ordered his ships to attack. The massed Persian ships were caught in a trap. Crowded, clumsy they could not maneuver in the tapered waters.

The clear Athenian advantage was that their navy was “state of the art.” They had used the proceeds from a successful mining operation to build a brand new fleet of “triremes,” fast and maneuverable ships made for close naval engagements. Each trireme had 170 rowers in three tiers on each side and could reach speeds up to ten knots. The Greek tactic was to get up speed by heavy rowing and then ram a Persian vessel before it could ram back. Waiting warriors on the deck would then lash the two together, jump across to the enemy ship and finish it off with desperate hand to hand combat supported by archers and spearmen back on the Greek vessel. Persia lost half its fleet at Salamis (200 ships) with the Greeks sustaining only light losses (about 40). Following a definitive mainland defeat the following year, the Persians were out of the Greek invasion business. Salamis had sealed the deal.

Research assistance by Ann Johnson. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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