But I’ll give Themistocles this, he was calm, dignified, and when he said we were assured of victory, he looked the part of a general.
He gathered two dozen commanders as the marines and helmsmen ran for their ships. The morning breeze was stiffening to a wind, and we could see the Persian army marching along the roads opposite us, under the slopes of Mount Aigeleos.
But between us and the Great King’s army lay one of the most awesome spectacles I have ever seen. The breeze was stiffening to a wind, but over the Bay of Salamis a morning fog lay. It clung to the water like smoke clings to the sacrifice on the altar, and the Persian fleet, their masts down, was only visible in the same way that a sharp-eyed hunter might spot a herd of deer on a foggy morning: by movement, and by fleeting gaps in the haze.
But even with these disadvantages to sight, from our eminence we could see that the Persians had moved silently past the island Psyttaleia and that the island itself was crawling with Persian troops. They were moving to encircle our beaches — indeed, had almost done so already.
Aristides nodded, tall and godlike in his panoply. ‘We’ll take the island,’ he said.
‘Not until I give the signal,’ Eurybiades said. ‘The Persians want a sea battle like a land battle?’ he asked. He didn’t smile or grin — that was not the Laconian way. But he exuded a steady confidence. ‘I will give them a battle that will remind them what is sea, what is land, and what is merely air.’
Then he ordered the Aeginians to stay fully armed and ready to launch, bows out, on their beaches, covered by Aristides and his hoplites and the Athenian corps of four hundred archers — enough skilled bowman to clear the decks of five ships in a single mighty volley.
‘Circumstances have changed, but not so much,’ he said. ‘Note how far their lead group has advanced,’ he said, pointing.
Cimon spoke up. ‘Phoenicians,’ he said, looking under his hand. ‘I’d wager my life on it. Almost to Eleusis.’
‘You may have done,’ Eurybiades said. ‘You, Cimon — and you, Plataean — will take your ships off the beaches and bear away west, as if fleeing. Xanthippus, you will follow them.’ He nodded. ‘When you see the gold shield flash you will engage, and not before. Every stade you can make on them westward that allows you to turn the battle back to the east will be the better for us.’
Men looked confused. ‘You want us to fish-hook to the west and drive back east on your command,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘Lade in reverse,’ Cimon said cheerfully. ‘We’ll remind the Phoenicians of how well they fought there.’
‘The Corinthians will face east against the Egyptians, in case they weather the island and approach from the west. I have sacrificed and prayed that they may not, as then the Corinthians will be our reserve.’ Eurybiades waited, as there was a babble of complaint. He rode it out with his impassivity. ‘You will not advance until I send a pentekonter for you.’
Adeimantus nodded, pleased, I think, to be held back from the fighting.
He looked at Themistocles. The wily Athenian nodded, as if they’d planned the whole talk like a play, each with his part. Perhaps they had. Themistocles, at least, was committed. No one now talked of surrender or flight. Even Adeimantus — I wish to give the slug his due — was armoured, alert, and committed.
‘What we must do, in the first minutes of the action, is turn the battle,’ he said. He pointed out over the straits.
Below us on the beaches, men were restless. Helmsmen shouted up at us, as if they thought we were not aware of how close the Persians were. It takes strong nerves to talk to your officers in the very face of the enemy, but it also wins battles. Eurybiades was such a man. He seemed as calm as a man about to go hunt hares, or have a walk in his vineyard.
Themistocles went on. ‘The Persians intend to fight with their line from east to west,’ he said. ‘We will turn them and force them to fight with their backs to the straits, and a north-south axis.’
We could see that even as the Persian ships deployed, more ships were passing behind the lead divisions. To my eye it looked as if they’d left themselves too little margin for error, too little rowing room.
And I liked our plan.
I’d heard it in the early hours of the morning. I knew the plan, and I liked it. And I liked that we would start with three of our largest squadrons apparently running west for open water along the coast — deserting. Just as the Persians expected.
‘Not until I raise the gold shield,’ Eurybiades said.
I nodded, and so did Cimon. I assume the rest of the navarchs nodded as well.
‘Let’s do this thing,’ Eurybiades said.
‘Remember,’ Themistocles began, but the older Spartan cut him off.
‘The time for talking is done,’ he said, mildly enough. ‘Now, we fight.’
As we walked away, Adeimantus remarked, as if to the air, ‘The old Spartan knows who he can trust! The Corinthians have the place of honour, in reserve — the balance of the battle.’
Cimon ignored him.
I managed a smile. ‘You know, Adeimantus, I have been in forty or so fights, and no one has ever once suggested that I be in reserve.’
He flushed, Cimon laughed, and several men patted me on the back.
I do get in a good thing from time to time.
The fog still lay over the bay, although it was burning off. The sea smelled beautiful and the breeze was almost a wind — more wind, in fact, than any captain wanted for a sea fight. It made our launching off the beaches tricky, to say the least, catching us broadside the moment the bow anchor-stones came in and threatening every ship with being laid broadside in a light surf. But we didn’t have any trierarchs — or helmsmen — so inexperienced.
We launched well enough, but we were ragged getting into formation and Xanthippus’s helmsman cursed Seckla like a man buying a bad horse in the agora, and his imprecations carried across the water. Strangely, we could hear the Persians, too, even with the thigh-high waves — nothing for a sailor to fear, but unusual in the bay.
My ships came off the beach. I only had four, Lydia included: Harpagos in Storm Cutter, Moire in Amastris, Giannis and Megakles in Black Raven. Athena Nike lay useless, her bows stove in, on the beach of Aegina to the south. My other ships were now crewed by Athenian citizens and not Plataeans. Ah, I lie. I had five — Naiad of Mithymna, my capture turned ‘free Greek’. I left Theognis as the helmsman, but I sent away half of his marines, and replaced them with young Pericles, with his father’s permission, and Anaxagoras, and a captain, a Spartiate provided by Bulis, named Philokles. It was the only ship with an ‘allied’ crew; I added twenty of my Plataean rowers and took twenty men of Lesvos aboard Lydia. But I still didn’t trust Naiad in the first line, and I told Harpagos and Moire to keep eyes on her. Had Aristides not taken command of the hoplites, I’d have offered him the command.
But four ships or five, it wasn’t the sort of fight where I was needed to tell my captains what to do. My duty was simple: to follow Cimon, to row as far west as I could manage; and then to obey the signal.
There’s something every sailor and every oarsman loves about duplicity. Perhaps it is the touch of the criminal in every man, but all our lives we’re told to avoid duplicity, to be honest — and then, when you are told that it is your duty to act a part and deceive your enemies, it can be great fun. I promise you, as our ragged line, a column of triremes three wide and thirty or more ships long, raced west under oars, I heard an oarsman grunt ‘We’ll be at the isthmus in no time, mates!’ and another pretend to weep from fear. It was not, perhaps, good enough for Dionysus and Aeschylus, but I promise you that our ill-kept column that scattered over a third of the bay to the west would have convinced anyone we were fleeing in panic.