The battle of Salamina was a naval confrontation that took place on September 20, 480 BC. C. in the Saronic Gulf , near the island of Salamina, present-day territory of the Hellenic Republic of Greece.
This consists of the third battle of the second medical war and in it the following forces faced each other:
- Persian fleet: made up of about 400 ships led by various admirals, while the Persian emperor Xerxes I watched them from a nearby promontory.
- Greek fleet: made up of about 300 triremes, so called because the ships were propelled by rowers seated in 3 rows. Most of the ships were contributed by Athens and were led by the Athenian Themistocles.
The Greeks won a naval victory that allowed them to destroy the bulk of the Persian fleet and prevent them from occupying all of Hellas .
Development of the battle of Salamis
After the Persians managed to defeat the defenders of Thermopylae ; Themistocles, the commander of the Greek fleet, ordered a retreat to the south. The Greek triremes were located in the Saronic Gulf, in waters near the island of Salamis.
Meanwhile, the Persian army entered Athens , looting and setting fire to a city that had already been abandoned by most of its inhabitants. The few that remained were killed by the invaders.
When the Persian fleet entered the Saronic Gulf, Themistocles moved part of his ships simulating a retreat . In this way he attracted the Persian ships, which were heavier than the Greek ones, into shallow waters. The Greek ships carried out a rapid enveloping maneuver , surrounding the Persian vessels and attacking them from the flanks. The bronze spurs of the Greek triremes embedded themselves hard in the hulls of enemy ships, opening gaps that were impossible to cover. Thus, the water flooded the damaged ships, which began to sink.
After losing about 200 ships, the Persians withdrew in a disorderly way, leaving victory for the Greeks , who only lost 40 ships.
Causes and consequences of the battle of Salamis
Causes
The causes of the battle of Salamis were the following:
- The desire of the Persian emperor Xerxes I to subdue the Greek city-states and extend his dominionsover the Balkan peninsula.
- The victory won by the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae , which allowed them to occupy the regions of Boeotia and Attica, and sack and burn Athens.
- The decision of the Greeks not to give up and keep fighting for the independence and freedom of Hellas.
Consequences
The main consequences of the Battle of Salamis were the following:
- The Persians were unable to cross the Isthmus of Corinth and invade the Peloponnese
- Xerxes feared that the Greek fleet would take advantage of the victory to attack the Strait of Dardanelles and thus cut off their supply routes, so he decided to return to Persia with part of his forces, leaving an army under the command of General Mardonius in Hellas. who ordered to defeat the Greeks.
- The Athenians recovered their cityand prepared for a decisive battle against the invaders.
- The Spartans crossed the Isthmus of Corinth and reached Attica, where they joined forces with those of the Athenians. Shortly after, an army made up of troops from almost all Greek cities achieved a decisive victory at the Battle of Plataea (479 BC), in which Mardonius died. Around the same time, a Greek fleet destroyed what was left of the Persian army at the Battle of Micala . These two defeats forced the Persians to give up the war and return to Asia.
Importance of the battle of Salamis
The triumphs obtained by the Greeks in Salamis, Plataea and Micala, prevented the Persians from conquering Hellas and integrating it into an Asian Empire that Xerxes wanted to transform into a universal one. In this way, the advance of the Persians towards the West was halted, and their civilization began a slow decline.
Athens and Sparta emerged stronger from the war against Persia and lived through a period of splendor, but the competition between the two polis and mutual distrust led to the Peloponnesian war
