Athenian navy

“ In spite of the precautions taken by the allies to prevent the domination of Athens at their expense, the policy of the league was almost throughout directed rather in the interests of Athens. Founded with the specific object of thwarting the ambitious designs of Sparta, it was plunged by Athens into enterprises of an entirely different character which exhausted the resources of the allies without benefiting them in any respect. There is no doubt that, with very few exceptions, the cities were held to their allegiance solely by the superior force of the Athenian navy. ”

“ With Macedonia, which is the timber-yard (5) of the Athenian navy, in our hands we shall be able to construct a far larger fleet than theirs. That stands to reason. And as to men, which will be the better able to man vessels, think you—Athens, or ourselves with our stalwart and numerous Penestae? (6) Which will better support mariners—a nation which, like our own, out of her abundance exports her corn to foreign parts, or Athens, which, but for foreign purchases, has not enough to support herself? ”

“ III. In the mean while the new ascendency of Athens was already endangered. The Carystians in the neighbouring isle of Euboea openly defied her fleet, and many of the confederate states, seeing themselves delivered from all immediate dread of another invasion of the Medes, began to cease contributions both to the Athenian navy and the common treasury. For a danger not imminent, service became burdensome and taxation odious. And already some well-founded jealousy of the ambition of Athens increased the reluctance to augment her power. ”

“ Thus situated, the Athenian state had a considerable coast-line and at least four ports—the Piræus, Nauplia, the harbour of Atalante opposite Eubœa, and Livadostro, or Rive d’Ostre, as the Franks called it, on the Gulf of Corinth—the usual port of embarkation for the West. Yet the Burgundian rulers of Athens made little attempt to create a navy, confining themselves to a little amateur piracy. ”

“ There is such confusion one can hardly analyze one’s surroundings. However, we soon discover the Peiræus has certain advantages over Athens itself. The streets are much wider and are quite straight, [+] crossing at right angles, unlike the crooked alleys of old Athens which seem nothing but built-up cow trails. Down at the water front of the main harbor (“the Peiræus” harbor to distinguish it from Zea and Munychia) we find about one third, nearest the entrance passage and called the Cantharus, reserved for the use of the war navy. ”

“ In June of the next year, 409, Thrasyllos joined him at Lampsakos with a new squadron of fifty triremes and a body of hoplites from Athens.
Pharnabazos had during this last year shown much more spirit than the Lakedaimonian government. Persian gold was freely spent among the Spartan soldiers, and a naval arsenal was provided for them by him at Antandros, near Mount Ida, where wood for the building of new ships could be obtained by them in abundance. An immense body of men were there set to work to form a fresh navy, to replace the one they had lost at Kyzikos. ”

“ As the advance of Cambyses into Egypt had been flanked by a fleet, so also was that of Xerxes into Greece. By the good fortune sometimes vouch-safed to a people which, owing to its obstinate opposition to, or neglect of, a wise policy, scarcely deserves it, there appeared at Athens an influential citizen who understood all that was meant by the term sea-power. Themistocles saw more clearly than any of his contemporaries that, to enable Athens to play a leading part in the Hellenic world, she needed above all things a strong navy. ”

“ Together, these states could raise a land force of sixty thousand men, besides a considerable naval armament, Corinth being especially strong in ships.
Athens commanded all the resources of the subject cities—about three hundred in number, with twice as many smaller towns—of her great maritime empire. Her independent allies were Chios, Lesbos, Corcyra, and other states. Of course the chief strength of Athens lay in her splendid navy. ”

“ Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas. Every Athenian in those days was a practised seaman. A state, indeed, whose members, of an age fit for service, at no time exceeded thirty thousand, could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held by devoting and zealously training all its sons to service in its fleets. In order to man the numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarily employed large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but the staple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of command were held by native citizens. ”

“ If she would defeat Athens, she must learn how to win victories on sea as well as on land. After every defeat of a fleet she built and equipped another, and gradually grew stronger in ships, and her seamen more skilful and expert, until the old difference between Athenian and Spartan seamen ceased to exist. Persia also came to the aid of Sparta, supplied her with money, and enabled her to replace her lost ships with ever new ones, while the ship-building power of Athens declined. ”

“ Greeks against the remnants of the Persian navy on the Asiatic coasts, raised the zeal of the Athenians for their sea service to the highest pitch. And when they had acquired the supremacy over the Greek islanders and cities of the coasts of the Ægean, they gained and sedulously employed fresh resources for augmenting the number of their galleys, and improving their own skill as mariners. For no nation was ever more thoroughly aware than the Athenians of the importance of assiduous training and perfect discipline in naval warfare. ”

“ The Athenians owed their victory to the wisdom of Themistocles, who managed to draw the Persians into the strait (scarce a cannon shot across just here) , where only a small part of their immense fleet could act at one time. The wind, as the wily Greek had foreseen, rose at the same time, and rendered the lofty-built Persian ships unmanageable; while the Athenian galleys, cut low to the water, were easily brought into action in the most advantageous position. It is impossible to look upon this beautiful and lovely spot and imagine the stirring picture it presented. ”

“ Indeed it was the superior discipline of the Athenian crews which in the days of Themistocles and Pericles gave Athens the supremacy of the seas. The nominal, and sometimes actual, commander of the trireme is her trierarch; but obviously a cultivated old gentleman like Eustathius is no man to manage the ship in a sea fight. He will name some deputy, perhaps a stout young friend or a son, for the real naval work. Even he may not possess great experience. The real commander of the Invincible is the “governor” (kybernates) , a gnarled old seaman, who has spent all his life upon the water. ”

“ Nowhere does the extraordinary value of that seamanship, which the Athenians had been gaining by years of improved practice, stand so clearly marked as in these first battles of Phormio. It gradually becomes less conspicuous as we advance in the war, since the Peloponnesians improve, learning seamanship as the Russians, under Peter the Great, learned the art of war from the Swedes, under Charles the Twelfth,—while the Athenian triremes and their crews seem to become less choice and effective, even before the terrible disaster at Syracuse, and are irreparably deteriorated after that misfortune. ”

“ Nor would they be able to reckon on tempting away the able foreign seamen from Athenian ships by means of funds borrowed from Olympia or Delphi. For besides that the mariners of the dependent islands would find themselves losers even by accepting a higher pay, with the certainty of Athenian vengeance afterwards, Athens herself would suffice to man her fleet in case of need, with her own citizens and metics: she had within her own walls steersmen and mariners better, as well as more numerous, than all Greece besides. ”

“ These are all the regular officers, but naturally for handling the sails and anchors some common sailors are desirable. The Invincible carries 17 of these. She also has 10 marines (epibatœ) , men trained to fight in hoplite’s armor and to repel boarders. The Persian ships at Salamis carried 30 such warriors, and often various Greek admirals have crowded their decks with these heavy marines; but the true Athenian sea warrior disdains them. Given a good helmsman and well-trained rowers, and you can sink your opponent with your ram, while he is clumsily trying to board you. ”

“ Athens, although her generals were showing the unaccustomed sight of an Athenian fleet retiring before Spartans—Athens at home was still working with the utmost vigour, sending forth armament after armament, as fast as she could get them ready. She now had, partly at Samos, partly investing Chios, a fleet of no less than one hundred and twenty ships of war—a large array for a people supposed by their enemies and those who did not know them to be at their last gasp. ”

“ As soon as you come within reach of a Syracusan vessel, fling your grappling-irons, and hold her fast, until not a man is left alive to defend her deck. This will be the task of the soldiers, whom I need not tell to do their duty. And you, seamen of the Athenian fleet, be not dismayed because we have forsaken our former tactics, but trust to the strong arms of the fighting men. Remember, those of you who are not of Attic descent, how long you have enjoyed the high privileges of Athenian citizens, and the honour reflected on you by your connection with Athens. ”

“ The confidence of the Athenians in their sea-power had a great deal to do with its outbreak. The immediate occasion of the hostilities, which in time involved so many states, was the opportunity offered by the conflict between Corinth and Corcyra of increasing the sea-power of Athens. Hitherto the Athenian naval predominance had been virtually confined to the Ægean Sea. ”

“ Greece’s only “torpedo-vessel” steams no more than fourteen knots, and the Admiralty Return assures Lord Charles Beresford and the world that she has but twenty-seven torpedo-boats, of which seventeen are over and ten under one hundred feet in length, and that she is not building any more. Considering the island interests of Greece and her situation in the Mediterranean, no one can pronounce her naval force as excessive, or regard her government as being tempted to any high heroic policy by her possession of an imposing navy. ”

“ If we wish, we can follow and learn much of the Greek system of warfare in general and of the Athenian army in particular.
[*] Of course the greatest military power of Greece had been Sparta until 371 B.C., when the battle of Leuctra made Thebes temporarily “the first land power.”
Even at the present day, when there is plenty of complaint that Athenians are not willing to imitate the sturdy campaigning of their fathers, the citizens seem always at war, or getting ready for it. Every citizen, physically fit, is liable to military service from his eighteenth to his sixtieth year. ”

“ The Athenian commanders, perceiving too late their mistake, did their utmost to recall the scattered crews, but in vain. The Spartan ships dashed in among those of Athens, found some of them entirely deserted, others nearly so, and wrought with such energy that of the whole fleet only twelve ships escaped. Nearly all the men ashore were also taken, while this great victory was won not only without the loss of a ship, but hardly of a man. The prisoners, three or four thousand in number, in the cruel manner of the time, were put to death. ”

“ The military reputation of his race had secured for him the chief command, though of the whole fleet of between three and four hundred triremes, less than a third had been provided by Sparta and her allies, and half of the armada was formed of the well-equipped Athenian fleet, commanded by Themistocles in person. As the storm abated the fleets faced each other in the strait north of Eubœa. In the Persian armada the best ships were five long galleys commanded by an Amazon queen, Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a Greek fighting against Greeks. ”

“ The levy is conducted by the ten Strategi (at once ‘generals,’ ‘admirals,’ and ‘war ministers’) who control the whole armed power of Athens. The recruits summoned have to come with three days’ rations to the rendezvous, usually to the Lyceum wrestling ground just outside the city. In case of a general levy the old men are expected to form merely a home guard for the walls; the young men must be ready for hard service over seas.
The organization of the Athenian army is very simple ”

“ The Syracusans knew that they were no match for the Athenians on the open sea, but with a fleet crowded into a harbor with no room for maneuvering, the problem was not essentially different from that of fighting on land. They built a fleet of ships with specially strengthened bows for ramming and erected catapults for throwing heavy stones on the decks of the enemy. Meanwhile, the Athenian ships had deteriorated from lack of opportunity to refit and their crews had been heavily reduced by disease. In a pitched battle between the two fleets in the harbor, the Athenians were worsted. ”

“ The generation that could manœuver is gone. Five and twenty years of fighting have used it up. But, happily, we can still fight, at least such a fleet as we have got to-day, the real Athenian grit, can fight. If the weather holds fine, and I think it will for the day, though I don’t quite like the looks of the sky, we shall do well, because we shall be able to keep together. [Pg 55] ”
The arrangement of the Athenian line may be very briefly described. It had two strong wings, each consisting of sixty ships, formed in four squadrons of fifteen. These wings consisted wholly of Athenian galleys ”