Greek fleet

“ 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. ”

“ The superiority of Athens was, however, due to political rather than commercial causes; and her people were chiefly famed for their daring and prowess as warriors at sea. To the Athenians, Greece was mainly indebted for her freedom from the Persian yoke. It was the Athenian fleet that resisted successfully the gigantic navy of Xerxes; and the description of this fleet, by Herodotus, is almost the only information we possess with regard to the size of Greek ships, and of the relative maritime power of the different Greek states. ”

“ The narrowness of the strait rendered the great numbers of the Persians of no avail. The superior discipline of the Greeks gave them a further advantage. The want of concert in the Persian allies was another aid to the Greeks. They were ready to run one another down in the wild desire to escape. Soon the Persian fleet became a disorderly mass of flying ships, the Greek fleet a well-ordered array of furious pursuers. In panic the Persians fled; in exultation the Greeks pursued. One trireme of Naxos captured five Persian ships. A brother of Xerxes was slain by an Athenian spear. ”

“ On the other hand, history clearly demonstrates that each Greek power, as it became famous, turned its attention to the sea as a source of wealth and greatness; and that, during the struggles between the Lacedæmonians and Athenians, Philip of Macedon, with a powerful fleet under his command, swept the seas of the pirates and marauders, enriching himself by the spoils. The Greeks, moreover, paid a marked attention to the mode of conducting their local commerce, forbidding their vessels to sail with more than a specified number of men on board. ”

“ When their ships sank they were drowned. The Greeks were able to save themselves in such a disaster. They threw away shield, helmet, and spear, and swam to another ship or to the island shore.
This fact would seem to indicate that with the exception of those who manned the Ionian and Phœnician squadrons the crews of the Persian fleet were much less at home on the sea than the Greeks. And we know from the result of many battles, from Marathon to the victories of Alexander, that on land the Greek was a better fighting man than the Asiatic. ”

“ A.D. 960.
“Some estimate,” remarks Gibbon, [353] “may be formed of the power of the Greek emperors by the curious and minute detail of the armament which was prepared for the reduction of Crete. A fleet of one hundred and twelve galleys, and seventy-five vessels of the Pamphylian style, was equipped in the capital, the islands of the Ægean Sea, and the seaports of Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. ”

“ So the Greek wedge forced itself further and further into the mass of hostile ships, and in the narrow waters numbers could not tell. The Greeks were never at any given moment engaged with a superior force in actual hand-to-hand conflict, and they had sufficient ships behind them to make good any local losses. Such a battle could have only one result.
All order had been lost in the Persian fleet at an early stage of the fight. ”

“ Following this there was a series of engagements between single ships, or between a single ship and several charging it at the same time, till the vast fleet of the enemy, harassed by repeated attacks of the Greek craft, which if smaller in size were more skilfully worked, and had the advantage of being less crowded, became a confused mob of vessels which damaged each other as much as they were damaged by the Greeks. ”

“ A no less effective argument was the necessity of protecting their growing commerce. Athens looked upon the sea, and that sea at once divided and united the scattered Greek communities who lived on the coasts and islands of the Archipelago. It was the possession of the fleet thus acquired that enabled Themistocles and Athens to play a decisive part in the crisis of the struggle with Asia. ”

“ The debates in the allied fleet came to an end with the appearance of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded. The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but they would fight with better chance of success than under any other circumstances.
The Greek force consisted of about 380 vessels. Of these, Athens contributed 180, Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesus were represented by 89 and the remainder were made up of squadrons from the island states. Some of these island contingents contained a type of ship different from the triremes, the penteconter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And thus, in time, a great force of men and a great fleet of ships were gathered, there being in all eleven hundred and eighty-six ships and more than one hundred thousand men. The kings and chieftains of Greece led their followers from all parts of the land to Aulis, in Bœotia, whence they were to set sail for the opposite coast of Asia Minor, on which stood the city of Troy. ”

“ Those of Sparta and the Peloponnesus were 89, the Athenian fleet 180, while 97 more were supplied by the Greek islands, some of the ships from Melos and the Cyclades being penteconters, large vessels whose long oars were each manned by five rowers. Losses by storm and battle had reduced the Persian armada to some six hundred effective ships. ”

“ The Greek Admiral commanding the Royal Fleet before the arsenal of Salamis—a force composed of two ironclads, one armoured cruiser, eighteen torpedo-boats and two submarines—failed to bid the Allies welcome: a breach of international rules which was duly resented and remedied.
The expedition had for its objects: (1) To seize a dozen enemy merchantmen which had taken refuge since the beginning of the War in the harbours of Eleusis and the Piraeus; (2) to obtain the control of Greek posts and telegraphs ”

“ The scheme of the battle given in nearly all the modern histories of Greece, represents the Persian fleet as drawn up on the morning of the battle along the Attic coast, from the narrows at the entrance of the bay of Eleusis almost to the mouth of Piræus harbour, while the Greek fleet is opposite, extending from a point some way north of the island of St. ”

“ In order, therefore, to prevent their quarrelling with any other Greek state, or cruising with a large fleet among the islands and the Peloponnesian coast, and so becoming entangled in some petty war, he manned a fleet of two hundred triremes with the intention of sailing a second time to Cyprus and Egypt, wishing both to train the Athenians to fight against barbarians, and also to gain legitimate advantages for Athens by the plunder of her natural enemies. ”

“ With the passing of the great days of the Greek states the art of [112] sea warfare suffered an eclipse from which it did not recover for many centuries, and we meet with no further indication of the existence of fleets organised in squadrons until the thirteenth century of our era. The proper stimulus for the development of the art of fleet tactics can only be supplied by the collision of two maritime powers of fairly equal intelligence and resources. This condition was first supplied by the rivalry of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice for the sea-borne trade of the Mediterranean. ”

“ This would have been true even of ships under sail, but in battle the war galleys were oar-driven, and as the ships jammed together there would be entangled oars, and rowers flung from their benches with broken heads and arms. Better discipline, more thorough fighting-power on the Greek side, would mean that the leading ships of their fleet would deal effectually with their nearest adversaries, while the rearward ships would rest upon their oars and plunge into the mêlée only where disaster to a leading ship left an opening. ”

“ All the Greeks knew their danger now, and a council from every city met at the Isthmus of Corinth to consider what was to be done. All their ships, 271 in number, were gathered in a bay on the north of the great island of Eubœa. There the Spartan captain of the whole watched and waited, till beacons from height to height announced that the Persians were coming, and then he thought it safer to retreat within the Euripus, the channel between the island and the mainland, which is so narrow that a very few ships could stop the way of a whole fleet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Themistocles induced the Athenians to build a fleet of two hundred sail, and to pass a decree that every year twenty new triremes should be built. The Greeks even at that period, however, seldom ventured out into the open sea, steering in the daytime by headlands or islands, and at night by the rising and setting of different stars.
The Greeks possessed ships of war and merchant-vessels. That a war-galley was of large size may be inferred from the fact that she carried two hundred seamen, besides on some occasions thirty Epibatoe—literally, marines, trained to fight at sea. ”

“ The first Greek people whom we know to have acquired a navy of importance were the Corinthians, Samians, and Phocaeans. About the time of Cyrus and Cambyses the Corinthian Triremes were generally adopted by the Sicilian tyrants and by the Corcyraeans, who soon acquired the most powerful navies among the Greeks. In other parts of Greece and even at Athens and in Aegina the most common vessels about this time were long ships with only one rank of rowers on each side. ”

“ Even when Athens had developed a rival navy Greek observers noted with admiration the discipline kept on board the Phoenician ships and the skill with which they were handled (Xen. Oec. viii.) ; all the Phoenician vessels from the round merchant-boat (γαῦλος—after which the island of Gaulus, now Gozo, near Malta was called) to the great Tarshish-ships, the “East-Indiamen” of the ancient world, excelled those of the Greeks in speed and equipment. As E. Meyer points out, the war between the Greeks and the Persians was mainly a contest between the sea-powers of Greece and Phoenicia. ”

“ This was assured to the insurgents at the outset by the revolt of the maritime communities of the Greek archipelago. The Greeks of the islands had been accustomed from time immemorial to seafaring; their ships—some as large as frigates—were well armed, to guard against the Barbary pirates and rovers of their own kin; lastly, they had furnished the bulk of the sailors to the Ottoman navy which, now that this recruiting ground was closed, had to be manned hastily with impressed crews of dock-labourers and peasants, many of whom had never seen the sea. ”

“ It was fortunate for Greece that the man who then counted for most in the politics of Athens was one who recognized the all-importance of sea-power, though it is likely that at the outset all he had in mind was that the possession of an efficient fleet would enable his city to exert its influence on the islands and among the coast cities to the exclusion of the military power of its rival Sparta. ”

“ 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? ”

“ It seems to me that we have nothing to gain, but should put a great deal at hazard by a general naval conflict at the present time. The truth is, that the Greeks, always terrible as combatants, are rendered desperate now by the straits to which they are reduced and the losses that they have sustained. The seamen of our fleet are as inferior to them in strength and courage as women are to men. ”

“ 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. ”