Herodotus, VIII, 1-16 (The Battle of Salamis)

I. The Greeks appointed to serve in the fleet were these: the Athenians furnished a hundred and twenty-seven ships; the Plataeans manned these ships with the Athenians, not that they had any knowledge of seamanship, but because of mere valor and zeal. The Corinthians furnished forty ships and the Megarians twenty; the Chalcidians manned twenty, the Athenians furnishing the ships; the Aeginetans eighteen, the Sicyonians twelve, the Lacedaemonians ten, the Epidaurians eight, the Eretrians seven, the Troezenians five, the Styrians two, and the Ceans two, and two fifty-oared barks; the Opuntian Locrians brought seven fifty-oared barks to their aid.
II. These are the forces which came to Artemisium for battle, and I have now shown how they individually furnished the whole sum. The number of ships mustered at Artemisium was two hundred and seventy-one, besides the fifty-oared barks. The Spartans, however, provided the admiral who had the chief command, Eurybiades, son of Euryclides, for the allies said that if the Laconian were not their leader, they would rather make an end of the fleet that was assembling than be led by the Athenians.
III. In the first days, before the sending to Sicily for alliance, there had been talk of entrusting the command at sea to the Athenians. However, when the allies resisted, the Athenians waived their claim, considering the safety of Hellas of prime importance and seeing that if they quarrelled over the leadership, Hellas must perish. In this they judged rightly, for civil strife is as much worse than united war as war is worse than peace. Knowing that, they gave ground and waived their claim, but only so long as they had great need of the others. This is clear, for when they had driven the Persian back and the battle was no longer for their territory but for his, they made a pretext of Pausanias' highhandedness and took the command away from the Lacedaemonians. All that, however, took place later.
IV. But now, the Greeks who had at last come to Artemisium saw a multitude of ships launched at Aphetae and forces everywhere, and contrary to all expectation, the barbarian was shown to be in much different shape than they had supposed. They accordingly lost heart and began to deliberate about flight from Artemisium homewards into Hellas. Then the Euboeans, noticing that they were making such plans, entreated Eurybiades to wait a little while, till they themselves had removed their children and households. When they could not prevail with him, they tried another way and gave Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, a bribe of thirty talents on the condition that the Greek fleet should remain there and fight, when they fought, to defend Euboea.
V. This was the way in which Themistocles made the Greeks stay where they were: he gave Eurybiades for his share five talents of that money, as though he were making the present of his own money. When Eurybiades had been won over in this way, none of the rest was inclined to resist save Adimantus, son of Ocytus, the Corinthian admiral, who said that he would not remain but sail away from Artemisium; to him Themistocles, adding an oath, said: “No, you of all men will not desert us, for I will give you a greater gift than the king of the Medes would send you for deserting your allies.” With that he sent three talents of silver to Adimantus ship. These two, then, were won over by gifts, the Euboeans got what they wanted, and Themistocles himself was the gainer. No one knew that he had kept the rest of the money, and those who had received a part of it supposed that it had been sent for that purpose by the Athenians.
VI. So the Greeks remained in Euboea and fought there; this came about as I will now reveal. Having arrived at Aphetae in the early part of the afternoon, the barbarians saw for themselves the few Greek ships that they had already heard were stationed off Artemisium, and they were eager to attack so that they might take them. They were not prepared to make a head-on attack since they feared that the Greeks would see them coming and turn to flee with night close upon them as they fled; it was their belief that the Greeks would save themselves by flight, and they did not want even so much as a firebearer to be saved.
VII. Taking these things into consideration, they devised the following plan; separating two hundred ships from the whole number, they sent them to cruise outside Sciathus so that the enemies might not see them sailing round Euboea and by way of Caphereus round Geraestus to the Euripus so that they might catch the Greeks between them, the one part holding that course and barring the retreat, and they themselves attacking in front. Upon making these plans they sent the appointed ships on their way, intending not to make an attack upon the Greeks either on that day or before the signal should be seen, whereby the ships that sailed round were to declare their coming. So they sent those ships to sail round, and set about counting the rest at Aphetae.
VIII. Now when they were engaged in this count, there was in the fleet one Scyllias, a man of Scione; he was the best diver of the time, and in the shipwreck at Pelion he had saved for the Persians much of their possessions and gotten much for himself in addition; this Scyllias had before now, it would seem, intended to desert to the Greeks, but he never had had so fair an occasion as now. By what means he did at last make his way to the Greeks, I cannot with exactness say. If the story is true, it is marvellous indeed, for it is said that he dove into the sea at Aphetae and never rose to the surface till he came to Artemisium, thus passing underneath the sea for about eighty furlongs. There are many tales about this man, some similar to lies and some true, but as regards the present business it is my opinion that he came to Artemisium in a boat. After arriving, he straightway told the admirals the story of the shipwreck, and of the ships that had been sent round Euboea.
IX. Hearing that, the Greeks took counsel together; there was much talk, but the opinion prevailed that they should remain and encamp where they were for that day, and then, after midnight, to put to sea and meet the ships which were sailing around. Presently, however, meeting with no opposition, they waited for the late afternoon of the day and themselves advanced their ships against the barbarian, desiring to put to the proof his fashion of fighting and the art of breaking the line.
X. When Xerxes' men and their generals saw the Greeks bearing down on them with but a few ships, they thought that they were definitely mad and put out to sea themselves, thinking that they would win an easy victory; this expectation was very reasonable, since they saw that the Greek ships so few while their own were many times more numerous and more seaworthy. With this assurance, they hemmed in the Greeks in their midst. Now all the Ionians who were friendly to the Greeks came unwillingly to the war and were distressed to see the Greeks surrounded. They supposed that not one of them would return home, so powerless did the Greeks seem to them to be. Those who were glad about the business, however, vied each with each that he might be the first to take an Attic ship and receive gifts from the king, for it was the Athenians of whom there was most talk in the fleet.
XI. But the Greeks, when the signal was given them, first drew the sterns of their ships together, their prows turned towards the foreigners; then at the second signal they put their hands to the work, despite the fact that they were hemmed in within a narrow space and were fighting face-to-face. There they took thirty of the foreigners ships as well as the brother of Gorgus king of Salamis, Philaon son of Chersis, a man of note in the fleet. The first Greek to take an enemy ship was an Athenian, Lycomedes, son of Aeschraeus, and he it was who received the prize for valor. They fought that sea-fight with doubtful issue, and nightfall ended the battle; the Greeks sailed back to Artemisium, and the barbarians to Aphetae, after faring far below their hopes in the fight. In that battle Antidorus of Lemnos, the only one of the Greeks siding with the Persian, deserted to the Greeks, and for that the Athenians gave him land in Salamis.
XII. When darkness came on, the season being then midsummer, there was abundance of rain all through the night and violent thunderings from Pelion. The dead and the wrecks were driven towards Aphetae, where they were entangled with the ships' prows and jumbled the blades of the oars. The ships crews who were there were dismayed by the noise of this, and considering their present bad state, expected utter destruction; for before they had recovered from the shipwreck and the storm off Pelion, they next endured a stubborn sea-fight, and after the sea-fight, rushing rain and mighty torrents pouring seaward and violent thunderings.
XIII. This is how the night dealt with them. To those who were appointed to sail round Euboea, however, that same night was still more cruel since it caught them on the open sea. Their end was a terrible one, for when the storm and the rain came on them in their course off the Hollows of Euboea, they were driven by the wind in an unknown direction and were driven onto the rocks. All this was done by the god so that the Persian power might be more equally matched with the Greek, and not much greater than it.
XIV. These men, then, perished at the Hollows of Euboea. As for the barbarians at Aphetae, when to their great comfort the day dawned, they kept their ships unmoved, being in their evil plight well content to do nothing for the moment. Now fifty-three Attic ships came to aid the Greeks, who were encouraged both by the ships coming and by the news that the barbarians sailing round Euboea had all perished in the recent storm. They waited then for the same hour as before, and fell upon certain Cilician ships when they put to sea. After destroying these when night fell, they sailed back to Artemisium.
XV. On the third day, however, the barbarian admirals, finding it hard to bear that so few ships should do them hurt and fearing Xerxes' anger, waited no longer for the Greeks to begin the fight, but gave the word and put out to sea about midday. So it came to pass that these sea-battles were fought on the same days as the land-battles at Thermopylae; the seamen's whole endeavor was to hold the Euripus while Leonidas' men strove to guard the passage; the Greeks were ordered to give the barbarian no entry into Hellas, and the Persians to destroy the Greek host and win the strait.
XVI. So when Xerxes' men ordered their battle and advanced, the Greeks remained in their station off Artemisium, and the barbarians made a half circle of their ships striving to encircle and enclose them. At that the Greeks charged and joined battle. In that sea-fight both had equal success. Xerxes' fleet did itself harm by its numbers and size. The ships were thrown into confusion and ran foul of each other; nevertheless they held fast and did not yield, for they could not bear to be put to flight by a few ships. Many were the Greek ships and men that perished there, and far more yet of the foreigners' ships and men; this is how they fought until they drew off and parted from each other.