“You may be sure that the ships of the Persians would have been victorious if it had simply been a
matter of numbers. For the total number of ships on the Greek side amounted to three hundred,
including an elite squadron of ten. But under Xerxes' command – I know this well – were a thousand
ships, with a total of two hundred and seven especially distinguished for speed. Such is the count. In
this respect we were at no disadvantage in the battle, don't you think? But it was some divine spirit
that brought this destruction upon our fleet, by loading one side of the balance with an unequal fate.
The gods were the salvation of the goddess Athena's city.” (Aeschylus, The Persians 337–47, a
Persian messenger reports on the battle of Salamis)Xerxes, who had witnessed the battle in person from a position on the coast of Attica, ordered what
remained of his fleet to return at once to Asia, and he himself set out for home, leaving behind a portion of
his army, under the command of Mardonius, for the purposes of subduing the remaining Greek land forces.
It was now the end of September, and by convention ancient armies fought one another only during the
summer months. Mardonius spent the winter with his army in northern Greece, which was, after all, still
under Persian control, and he spent his time trying to create dissension among those cities that were still
determined to hold out against the Persians. When those attempts failed him, Mardonius marched in the
spring of 479 BC and occupied Athens once again. The Greek forces mobilized and encountered
Mardonius and the Persians in a decisive battle at Plataea, near the border that separates Athenian from
Theban territory. During the course of the battle, Mardonius himself was killed, the Persian battle lines
were broken, and the Greeks were victorious on land, as they had been at sea in the battle of Salamis. Not
long after the battle of Plataea was fought, the poet Simonides composed an extended elegiac poem to
commemorate the event, portions of which have only recently come to light in a fragmentary papyrus first
published in 1992. In the poem, Simonides invests this victory with epic significance, associating it
explicitly with the legendary Greek expedition into Asia to conquer Troy (and associating himself
implicitly with the poet of the Iliad). As we have seen, Homer was looking back to an event that took
place – if, indeed, it ever did take place – hundreds of years before his own time, so that the tendency to
elaborate and magnify could hardly be resisted. In the case of the defense of Greece against Xerxes and
the Persians, the event itself was already of such magnitude that it needed no exaggeration and could only
be conceived of in the mythic terms that Homer had established.
“It is reported that, while watching the battle, Xerxes became aware of her ramming the other ship
and someone who was present said, ‘Lord, do you see how brilliantly Artemisia is performing? She
has sunk an enemy ship!' Xerxes asked his staff whether it was indeed Artemisia who was
responsible and they confirmed it, since they could clearly recognize the device on the ship as hers
... When he was told this Xerxes is reported to have said, ‘My men have turned out to be women
and my women men!' ” (Herodotus, 8.88.2–3, on Queen Artemisia of Caria, who commanded five
ships at the battle of Salamis)Zetemata: Questions for Discussion
What might have prompted Thales of Miletus to consider water as the fundamental element of
everything in the universe, including living organisms?
What might have prompted Anaximander of Miletus to think of natural phenomena in essentially moral
or commercial terms, when he speaks of elements having to pay a penalty for unjust encroachment?