Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

shorter Greek line, like the horns of a bull or a crescent moon. At last Eurybiades gave the order to attack. The two fleets collided all along the line. The Persian order broke with the collision. In the chaos that followed, their ships fouled one another as much as they injured the Greeks. Still they did not retreat, and the Egyptians among others began to perform with success. Ships were lost on both sides, but in the end Xerxes’ mighty navy once more got the worst of it. After three successive engagements at Artemisium, Themistocles’ interpretation of the Delphic Oracle still held true. The Wooden Wall had endured.
    The retreating Persians left the Greeks in control of the sea. They carried out the sacred duty of picking up the floating corpses of their comrades and towed the wrecked vessels back to Artemisium. After the heavy ramming action on that third day of fighting half the Athenian triremes needed repairs. Given their small numbers, the Greeks could ill afford to lose any ships. Yet they had survived and had refused to let the enemy drive them from the sea. At the victory celebration on the beach they again voted to award the prize for valor to the Athenians. This time the individual prize went to a noble Athenian named Cleinias. His ship had not been built with public money from the silver strike but was a trireme of his own, as in the buccaneering days of old, furnished with a crew of followers in Cleinias’ pay.
    While the Greeks were taking their evening meal, the lookouts caught sight of a vessel coming in fast from the west. It was the Athenian galley from Thermopylae. As soon as it reached shore, Abronichus made his report. There was no message from Leonidas: the king was dead. For two days the Spartans and other Greek allies had succeeded in repelling wave after wave of Persian attacks, even though the main Peloponnesian army had still not arrived. That morning, however, scouts had come running down from the hills with the news of a Persian breakthrough.
    In the night a local Greek turncoat had led the dreaded spearmen whom the Greeks called “The Immortals” around Thermopylae by a path running along a high mountain ridge. Within a short time Leonidas was trapped between two fires. The Spartan king now had only three options: flight, surrender, or death. Xerxes would have been only too delighted if his opponent had agreed to terms, but Leonidas, achieving true heroism in his final hours, resolved that he would fight to the death in the pass. His courage inspired the three hundred Spartans and a thousand men from the town of Thespiae to follow his lead. Leonidas sent the bulk of his army away toward the south and dispatched Abronichus and his Athenian crew to their triakontor at the same time. By staying behind, Leonidas and his thirteen hundred meant to hold the Persians long enough for the other allies to escape. They, at least, would live to fight another day.
    Marshaling his hoplites for the last time, Leonidas led them to the end of the pass in battle array. He had to defend himself from enemies in front and to the rear, as “The Immortals” were now clambering down from the hills into the narrow roadway behind him. When it became clear that the Greeks would not surrender, Xerxes responded with such an avalanche of men that some Persians on the edge of the mass were pushed into the sea and drowned. The Greeks fought like men possessed. When their spears broke, they went on fighting at close quarters with swords and finally with their bare hands. Even after Leonidas fell, the Greeks would not surrender. In the end Xerxes had to send in his light-armed troops to finish the job with a hail of missiles. The road to the south now lay open. Powerless to help, the Athenians had watched until they could no longer doubt the outcome. Then they set off as fast as they could row to warn the fleet.
    The news from Thermopylae changed everything. Exhausted after a full day of rowing and fighting, the Greeks