Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (1.1882-1883)

240

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

rough Silenian rocks, at the end of the long sharp point of Salamis,
where " Artembares, leader of ten-thousand horse" 1 found his
grave ; the hill on which the town of Salamis stood, in its com-
manding position, boldly projecting into the bay; the rocky and
inhospitable coast of the mainland of Attica, with its steep height
of Aegaleos rising opposite the town ; the bright clear waters of the
straits of Salamis, still as ready as of old to change from a glassy
calm to a lively swell in the morning sea-breeze;2 — all these are
still familiar sights to every one who sails or rows from the Piraeus
over to the bay of Salamis.

In most histories of Greece and in most commentaries on Hero-
dotus an account of the battle of Salamis is given, chiefly or
wholly on the supposed authority of Herodotus, which seems to me
to neglect or to contradict some of the most obvious facts of the
topography, as well as the best testimony of the ancients. Nearly
all modern writers represent the Greek fleet at the beginning of the
battle as drawn up in a curved line around the great bay of Salamis,
sometimes outside the hill on which the town stood and the high
island of St. George north of the town, sometimes with the line
broken by one or both of these formidable obstructions ; while the
Persian fleet is arranged (often in three lines) directly opposite the
Greeks, extending from the entrance of the gulf of Eleusis almost
to the Piraeus. Indeed, it is generally assumed that the principal
movement by which the Persians endeavored to cut off the escape of
the Greeks, after the message of Themistocles to Xerxes, consisted in
bringing a large part of their fleet into this position. It is said that,
under cover of the night and without the knowledge of the Greeks,
they rowed several hundred ships quietly through the narrow pas-
sages between the Attic coast and the two opposite points of Psytta-
leia and Salamis, and formed their line from the neighborhood of
the Piraeus along the main land through the straits of Salamis, until
their northern wing was pushed beyond Aegaleos so as to close the
passage from the straits into the gulf of Eleusis.3 If this move-

1 Aesch. Pers. 302. 2 Pint. Them. 14.

3 Grote, V. p. 1 72, says : During the night, a portion of the Persian fleet, sailing
from Peiraeus northward along the western coast of Attica, closed round to the
north of the town and harbour of Salamis, so as to shut up the northern i^sue
from the strait on the side of Eleusis. Curtius, Griech. Gesch. II. p. 69, makes