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Podcast Transcript
In 480 BC, the most powerful empire on Earth set out to crush a collection of small, divided Greek city-states.
On land, defeat seemed inevitable. But at sea, in a narrow strait near a small island called Salamis, everything changed.
Through strategy, deception, and sheer determination, the Greeks pulled off one of history’s most unlikely victories.
The outcome didn’t just stop an invasion; it preserved a civilization.
Learn more about the Battle of Salamis, and how a single naval clash altered the course of history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
To understand the Battle of Salamis, you have to understand the Greco-Persian Wars, which lasted about 50 years, beginning in 499 BC.
In the 5th Century BC, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had ever seen. It encompassed most or all of the Levant, Persia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Asia Minor, and Egypt.
However, the Persians weren’t satisfied. They sought to conquer the city-states of Greece, which consisted of over a thousand independent communities, each known as a polis.
The polis system defined the Greek world. Each fiercely independent polis had unique customs, economies, strategies, and identities. However, this independence complicated the Greeks’ efforts to defend collectively when threats arose.
Greece’s mountainous terrain blocked the physical unity that most civilizations of the time achieved.
When Persian forces first attacked Greek Ionia, now part of the west coast of Turkey, only two communities came to its aid. After securing Ionia, Persian ambitions soon turned toward Athens, marking a significant expansion of their campaign.
In 490 BC, the Persian Emperor Darius’s fleet landed at Marathon, approximately 25 miles from Athens, a topic I covered in a previous episode. The Athenians’ victory at Marathon ended Persian aggression in Greece, or so they assumed.
That changed in 486 BC, when Darius died, and his son Xerxes ascended the Persian throne. Xerxes was determined to defeat the Greeks and achieve what his father had failed to do.
Themistocles, an Athenian general and statesman, was suspicious of the optimism surrounding the end of the Persian threat and began planning for their inevitable return. His plan began to take shape in 483 BC, thanks to some remarkable good fortune for the people of Athens.
It was that year that an Athenian silver mine in the hills of Southern Attica discovered a vast silver vein. The discovery yielded 100 talents of silver, which was approximately 7,500 pounds or 3,400 kilograms.
The Athenian assembly rejoiced at the discovery. Under Athenian law, the amount would be divided equally among the male citizens of Athens. The total equaled 10 drachmae per male citizen, or the equivalent of two weeks’ skilled work.
Yet, despite this excitement, it was not meant to be, as Themistocles had other plans for the silver. For Themistocles, a veteran of the Battle of Marathon, the war with Persia had not ended.
Themistocles had spent the past 7 years planning and preparing for a return assault, and the vein of silver presented the perfect opportunity. Themistocles argued to the Athenian Assembly that instead of dividing the money, they should build a fleet of modern triremes.
A trireme was an ancient warship powered by three rows of oars on each side, designed for speed and maneuverability, and equipped with a bronze ram for sinking enemy ships.
Themistocles’ proposal faced strong opposition within the Athenian Assembly, notably from Aristides, a powerful Athenian general. Though both were generals at Marathon, Themistocles and Aristides were now at odds over the issue of the silver. Despite their shared past, they found themselves on opposing sides of the silver debate.
Aristides believed that Athens’s strength lay in its heavy infantry, the Hoplites, who had won at Marathon. Aristides advocated an equal split of the silver, believing that a shared stake in the city’s wealth would marshal the citizens to fight harder in battle.
Themistocles insisted on his plan, refusing to let Aristides block it. In 482 BC, as the assembly stalemated, Themistocles and his allies campaigned against Aristides. They accused war hero Aristides of tyranny.
Since the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias in 508 BC, Athens fiercely resisted absolute power. Themistocles aimed to use the democracy’s weapon, ostracism, against Aristides to secure the 100 talents.
Themistocles’s campaign stirred enough support for a vote against Aristides, and Athenian citizens cast their votes for ostracism. Aristides was banished from the city for ten years, paving the way for Themistocles to implement his plan.
Even after Aristides was ostracized, there was one remaining barrier to modernizing the Athenian fleet. Securing the votes in the assembly required more than removing Aristides. Justifying the expense required an enemy.
Themistocles knew that if he revealed the true nature of his plan, it would fail. Persia was too sensitive a topic for Athens in 482 BC.
Instead, Themistocles pointed Athens at their rival city, Aegina. Aegina is an island off the coast of Athens and served as its most immediate rival in Greece. Aegina and Athens had been fighting intermittently since before the Greco-Persian Wars began.
Themistocles argued that the trireme fleet would give Athens the upper hand over Aegina. Themistocles secured the 100 talents, and Athens began the construction of the triremes in the port of Athens.
The Athenian trireme measured 37 meters (120 feet) long and 5.5 meters (18 feet) wide. It had a bronze ram weighing up to 450 kg (1,000 lbs) at the front.
The Athenian trireme was a missile. When rowed properly in battle, it could reach speeds up to 10 knots (11.5 mph) and inflict massive damage on enemy vessels.
The Athenian trireme held 170 oarsmen. To man 200 triremes, required 34,000 rowers. Athens couldn’t supply that many men, so they needed a coalition of Greeks.
Athenians completed the trireme fleet just in time. When the trireme fleet was finally ready, the Persians invaded Greece in 480 BC, returning with both a massive land army and a navy.
They moved throughout the region unimpeded until they arrived at the Thermopylae pass.
You may remember my episode on the Battle of Thermopylae. King Leonidas and his force of 300 Spartans held out heroically for several days, keeping the Persians at bay.
It was one of the most important battles in world history, not because the Spartans won, in fact, they were wiped out. It was important because the sacrifice of the 300 Spartans gave Themistocles the time he needed.
He used it to launch his evacuation of Athens to the island of Salamis and the Peloponnesian city of Troizen. Securing the evacuation of Athens was the critical transition that arguably posed the greatest obstacle to Themistocles’s plan at Salamis.
After Thermopylae, the Persians secured victories as they marched through Greece until they reached the vicinity of Athens.
Shortly after the Persians arrived, the Athenians sought guidance from the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle delivered a terrifying warning to the Athenians. The Oracle’s spokesperson, the Pythia, proclaimed, “Flee to the ends of the earth… all is ruined.”
Themistocles insisted on a second prophecy.
This time, the Pythia returned with a message he could work with: “Yet Zeus the all-seeing grants to Athene’s prayer that the wooden wall only shall not fall.”
Themistocles convinced his fellow Athenians that the wooden walls were in reference to the triremes, and it would be the key to victory. As a result of Themistocles’ argument, the Athenians agreed to retreat and rely on the triremes.
Some were skeptical of Themistocles’ plan and insisted on hiding behind literal wooden fortifications they quickly constructed. The Persians torched the hastily constructed wooden walls, killing all who remained behind.
Themistocles planned to lure the Persians into the narrow strait of Salamis. There, the massive fleet of Persian triremes would be unable to maneuver, opening them up to a relentless attack by the Athenian battering ram triremes.
Themistocles needed to get the Persians to enter the strait. They knew it was narrow, and entering without a clear path to victory was not a smart strategy. Themistocles hatched a plan to take advantage of Xerxes aggressive vanity.
He sent his loyal servant to Xerxes with a message intended to persuade him to pursue the Greeks into the Strait of Salamis. The message read “The Greeks are afraid and planning to run for it. You can now achieve a brilliant victory if you don’t sit by and watch them run.”
The plan worked perfectly. Themistocles tricked the Persians into sailing deep into the strait.
Xerxes watched the battle with optimism from a golden throne adjacent to the strait atop Mount Aegaleo.
As the fatigued Persians, who had been rowing all night, arrived at dawn, they saw the Greek line of triremes. Much to Xerxes’s surprise, the Greeks were not in disarray and preparing to flee; instead, the Athenians were in battle formation. The larger Persian triremes were packed in a line, unable to maneuver, and at the mercy of the Athenian battering ram ships.
The Greeks bore down on the Persians without mercy. The Athenian triremes pounded the helpless Persian ships.
The Greek playwright Aeschylus recalled the rallying cry in his famed poem titled The Persians when he wrote:
Advance, ye sons of Greece, from Slavery save
Your country, save your wives, your children, save,
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb
Where rest your honored ancestors; this day
The common cause of all demands your valour.
Most of the Persians who entered the strait drowned because they were conscripts who didn’t know how to swim , unlike the Greeks, who lived near water and were accustomed to it.
Greek sailors pounded the Persians in the water with broken oars, killing those who hadn’t drowned.
The Persians had assembled an elite infantry force stationed near the coast with plans to ambush any Greeks who came ashore. Instead, a group of Greek hoplites was hiding, waiting to counter the Persian forces.
Aristides seized his chance for redemption. Returning from the exile that Themistocles engineered in 482 BC, he took command of the hoplites to save the very city that had cast him out.
Panic seized Xerxes as he witnessed the slaughter from his throne. He realized that only an immediate retreat to Asia Minor would prevent an even greater catastrophe: a Greek invasion of the Persian heartland.
Themistocles’ combination of strategic brilliance and political savvy won the day. The victory had given Athens the confidence to pursue an empire of her own.
Salamis inspired Athens to form the Delian League and establish Greek colonial holdings in Asia Minor.
The Greeks and Persians fought intermittently until 449 BC, when the Peace of Callias was signed, limiting Greek dominion to the Aegean and Persia to Asia Minor. The treaty would remain in effect until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC.
One of the most interesting outcomes of the victory at Salamis was the tragic end for Themistocles. Athens grew weary of his political games, and in 472 BC, the citizens ostracized Themistocles, casting him out of the city he had saved.
Themistocles eventually settled in Persia of all places, striking a deal with Xerxes that would allow him to live in comfort there, provided he helped strategize against the Greeks when the time came.
The new Persian king, Artaxerxes, summoned Themistocles to help him devise a plan against the Greeks. However, Themistocles never went to Artaxerxes; he chose suicide rather than betray his homeland.
Athens leveraged the victory at Salamis to build a cultural empire, sparking a golden age in philosophy, mathematics, and theater. The ascendency of Athens can be directly traced back to the tens of thousands who rowed at Salamis and demanded a voice in state affairs.
Athens greatness remained until its closing chapter and its defeat at the hands of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. The Spartan king Lysander’s terms were severe, mandating the destruction of Athens powerful fleet of triremes.
While Sparta’s destruction of the triremes ended any illusion of Athenian hegemony, it did not extinguish what the victory at Salamis had achieved.
The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.
Research and writing for this episode were provided by Joel Hermansen.
Today’s review comes from Mel11691 on Apple Podcasts in the US. They write:
Alcohol consumption in America
I’m currently binge-listening to all your podcasts. Needless to say, I really enjoy them. The thing I enjoy most is having a chance to compare my knowledge with your fact reports. The alcohol report about early America made me think. While doing all that drinking, we gained our independence, expanded and tamed a continent, and essentially created the modern world. Maybe drinking isn’t all that bad?
Thanks, Mel! I think you have to distinguish between doing well despite something and doing well because of something. If you remember back to the episode, drinking in early America was pretty bad. In fact, the severity of the problem was a major reason the temperance movement became so powerful in the United States, but not elsewhere.
Remember, if you leave a review on any of the major podcast apps, you too can have it read on the show.