The Persian's, then led by Darius The Great, had just subjugated the Ionian Greeks, who were famous for developing a new three level warship known as the "Trireme" which was destined to change naval warfare for years to come. Themistocles, using his vast intellect and clever rhetoric, convinced the Athenian People's Assembly once again, this time to take the Ionian's naval blueprint and build 100-200 Triremes.
Darius the Great had just been succeeded by Xerxes who had marched the Persian troops through Thrace and Macedonia, had defeated the Spartans at Thermopylae (the battle in the critically acclaimed movie 300), the inner gateway to Hellas, and slain the notorious Spartan king, Leonidas. The plight of the Hellenes was desperate: they had dissipated Athens, leaving behind only a sole garrison to defend the Greek Acropolis. Indeed, they had forlorned the mainland of Athens, and withdrawn the small fleet to a small island called Salamis.
The battle of Salamis marked the apex of the second Persian invasion of Greece. The Persian Empire in 482 BC was angry at Greece for aiding the Ionian's in the revolt against the Persians and engaged in a full scale attempt to conquer Greece. Under the advisement of General Themistocles, the Greeks sailed to the island of Salamis to prevent Persian naval operations against the Peloponnesus, the part of Greece that remained unoccupied. According to Greek historian, Herodotus, there were 180 ships from Athens, 40 from Corinth, 30 from Aegina, 20 from Chalcis, 20 from Megara, 16 from Sparta, 15 from Sicyon, 10 from Epidaurus, 7 from Eretria, 7 from Ambracia, 5 from Troizen, 4 from Naxos, 3 from Leucas, 3 from Hermione, 2 from Styra, 2 from Cythnus, 2 from Ceos, 2 from Melos, one from Siphnus, one from Seriphus, and one from Croton (these numbers are under scrutiny amongst historians) (Hammond Pg. 50). The much larger Persian fleet consisted of 1207 ships, and the empire was at its zenith of confidence. Xerxes's Persian's decided to meet the Athenian fleet off the coast of Salamis Island, and they were so confident of their victory that Xerxes assembled a throne on the shore for him to sit and watch for soldiers that excelled in combat.
The Persian naval strategy was to severely outnumber the Greeks and destroy the Allied forces in hopes that the Greeks would surrender. The Greeks took on a more tactical and logical approach. Led by Themistocles they planned to lure the large Persian fleet into the narrow canals, creating a Thermopylae-esque final stand. Themistocles believed that because the territory was native to them, and that they were there first, they could fend off the tyrannical Persians. His plan worked. The Athenians squeezed the canal, over-crowding the narrow passage with Triremes, and attacked the Persian vessels. The Greeks slowly strangled and cornered the Persian ships and easily obliterated the Persian’s first line. Of the ships destroyed on the first line, one of them carried the Persian admiral Ariabignes (a brother of Xerxes); leaving the Persians baffled and unmethodical. The Greeks took advantage of this and warded off the Persian's plight for territorial expansion. By the end of the war, over 200 Persian boats were captured or sunk and the Persians lost a great deal of soldiers due to the fact that most of them could not swim (Hammond).
The years preceding the Persian War Themistocles was at the acme of his fame. The very next year, his decline started. There was no need for a naval policy anymore, and his acclaim was catching the eye of the People's Democracy. Athenians thought he was becoming too powerful. Therefore, he was ostracized and resided in Argos, where he, in spite of his ostracism, remained a loyal Athenian patriot and continued his much approved anti-Spartan policy. The Spartans in thier abjuration of Themistocles, informed the Athenian People's Assembly that he had become an acquaintance of Xerxes (Podlecki). This statement was most likely fallacious, but the Athenians converted their sentence of ostracism to one of death. Themistocles fled Argos to escape his execution and ironically wound up in Persia. In 459 BC, Themistocles died at the age of 65 and was succeeded by the Greek democrat, Pericles. It has been said that the man who saved Greece and western civilization as we know it, could have been forced to commit suicide; an unworthy death of a noteworthy man.
Themistocles should be recognized as one of the most influential figures in western civilization, including all branches of European culture. Many historians claim that had Themistocles not persuaded the Athenian Assembly to construct Triremes and fortify the coastal areas of Athens, Greek culture would have been strangled. The Persians had an opprobrious reputation for forcefully injecting their culture into conquered lands (this is why the defeat of the Persians at the battle of Salamis is so significant). After Salamis, the Peloponnesus, and later on Greece as an entity was free from Persian conquest; and the Persians suffered a severe morale loss (as well as immense material losses). At the following battles of Plataea and Mycale, the threat of conquest was completely removed, and all the Greek city-states were relieved of subjugation. The new found confidence that dwelled in the minds of the Greeks ignited the "Athenian Golden Age," a cultural flourishing that took place following the Persian War. One could argue that if the Greeks had lost to the Persians, the ensuing conquest would have smothered the growth of modern "western civilization." The legacy of Ancient Greece is rudimentary to much of modern Western society. Greek philosophers engendered the concept of Western thought as well as most Western science. Ideas such as individual freedom and democracy are directly derived from this period, along with Roman law, literature, and European architecture. Considering the strong prevalence of Western civilization in much of modern history, it is not fallacious to assume that Persian domination would have altered the whole consecution of human history. We can give our gratitude to Themistocles for making America and other countries around the world what they are today.
Bibliography
1. Hammond, N. G. L. "The Battle of Salamis," JHS 76 (1956) 32-54.
2. Hignett, C., Xerxes' Invasion of Greece. Oxford: The Calrendon Press. (1963).
3. Larsen, J.A.O. "Studies in the Life of Themistocles." Diss. Cincinnati, (1954) 78-116.
4. Morrison, J.S., and Williams R.T. "The Strategy of Themistocles." (1938), 219-222.
5. Plutarch, "The Life of Themistocles." The Parallel Lives II (1914), 3/10/2008 <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Themistocles*.html>.
6. Podlecki, Anthony J. "The Life of Themistocles" McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal and London (1975) 49-86.