The Battle of Artemisium (480 BCE)

The Battle of Artemisium was a series of naval engagements fought over three days in late summer 480 BCE in the strait between northern Euboea and the mainland of Greece, at the same time as the land battle at Thermopylae. A Greek fleet of about 270 to 330 triremes, most of them Athenian, held off the much larger fleet of Xerxes, which had already been battered by storms. Neither side won outright; when news came that Thermopylae had fallen, the Greeks sailed south to Salamis.

A plan for land and sea

Xerxes’s army depended on its fleet, which carried supplies and protected the army’s seaward flank as it marched down the coast. The Greek allies saw that if the fleet could be stopped, the army would be in difficulty. They placed their ships at Artemisium, named after a temple of Artemis on the headland, where they could block the channel between Euboea and the mainland and stay in contact with the land force at Thermopylae. If the Persian ships got through the channel, they could land troops behind Leonidas.

The Spartan Eurybiades held overall command because the other allies refused to serve under an Athenian, even though Athens provided more than half the ships. Herodotus says Athens manned 127 ships, with Plataeans helping to row some of them, and lent 20 more to Chalcis.

The fleets

The Persian fleet was not Persian in its crews. Herodotus lists the contingents of the king’s navy: Phoenicians first, with 300 ships, then Egyptians, Cypriots, Cilicians, Ionian and other Asian Greeks, Carians and others. Its admirals were Persians of the highest rank, including Ariabignes and Achaemenes, both sons of Darius. For the navy’s organisation and its Phoenician core, see The Achaemenid Navy.

Both sides used the trireme, a fast oared warship about 35 metres long with a bronze ram at the bow, rowed by some 170 men. The Phoenician ships were generally lighter and better handled; the Athenian ships, newly built, were heavier and crewed by less experienced rowers.

Storms before the battle

The weather did more damage than the Greeks. While anchored along the open coast of Magnesia near Cape Sepias, the Persian fleet was caught by a gale that lasted three days. Herodotus says that at least 400 warships were lost, along with countless supply vessels, and that the Athenians had prayed to Boreas, the north wind, for help. The figure is very likely too high, but the storm clearly cost the Persians many ships before any fighting began. The remaining fleet gathered at Aphetae, across the water from the Greeks.

Herodotus also tells a story that shows how Greek tradition later treated Themistocles. When the Greeks thought of retreating, the people of Euboea are said to have paid Themistocles 30 talents to keep the fleet there; he passed small sums to Eurybiades and to the Corinthian commander and kept the rest. True or not, it fits the image of a clever, ambitious man who later ended his life in Persian service.

Three days of fighting

The first day

The Persians sent 200 ships round the outer coast of Euboea to come up behind the Greeks and trap them in the channel. A diver from Scione named Scyllias, who had been serving with the Persians, deserted and warned the Greeks. They attacked the main Persian fleet late in the afternoon, forming a circle with their sterns inward and rams outward, and captured 30 ships before darkness ended the fight.

The second day

That night another storm broke. The 200 ships sent round Euboea were wrecked on the rocky coast that Herodotus calls the Hollows. The same day 53 fresh Athenian ships arrived, and the Greeks attacked and destroyed some Cilician ships.

The third day

On the third day the Persian fleet came out in force. Herodotus describes a hard, even battle with heavy losses on both sides; half the Athenian ships were damaged. On the Persian side, he says, the Egyptians fought best, capturing five Greek ships with their crews. On the same day Leonidas was making his last stand at Thermopylae.

Withdrawal

A messenger brought the news that the pass had fallen. The Greek fleet had no reason to stay and could be trapped, so it withdrew at once, south through the Euripus channel towards Salamis and Athens. Before leaving, Herodotus says, Themistocles had messages cut into rocks near the watering places, calling on the Ionians in the Persian fleet to desert or at least fight badly. The aim was as much to make Xerxes distrust his Ionian ships as to win them over.

Who won

Greek tradition remembered Artemisium as a success that gave the Athenians confidence; the poet Pindar called it the place where the sons of Athens laid the foundation of freedom. In terms of results, the Persian fleet held its position, kept pace with the army and moved south to Phalerum, the harbour of Athens, while the Greek fleet withdrew. Losses on both sides were heavy, but the Persian navy had been worn down more by weather than by battle. Its decisive test came a few weeks later in the narrows of Salamis.

There is no Persian account of Artemisium. As with the other battles of 480 BCE, the only narratives are Greek, and Herodotus, who wrote the fullest one, depended on Athenian informants who had every reason to stress their own part. See the wider campaign in Xerxes’ invasion of Greece.

A famous bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon, now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, was found in a shipwreck off Cape Artemisium in the 1920s. It is often linked with the battle by name, but it was made some decades later and has nothing to do with it.