Christian Cameron: The Great King

The Persian squadron.

But a number of factors were against it being the enemy. First, there were not two hundred ships, and Brasidas, of all men, is not prone to exaggerate. Second, I didn’t think they could have run all the way down Euboea, weathered the great point there, and come up the main channel without any of our scouts seeing them — without the Ionian packet boat at Thermopylae giving us warning.

It was young Pericles — who had now become a member of our crew — who made the call.

‘Those are Athenian ships,’ he said.

Now, I’ve mentioned before that Aegina and Athens both left ships in home waters. Ostensibly, this was to cover Attica if the Persians sent a Phoenician squadron out into the Great Blue and straight in on the coast — I, for one, feared landing at Marathon or Brauron more than anyone. But the sad truth is that neither state trusted the other, and both left heavy squadrons to watch the other’s heavy squadron.

Something had changed, then. When we were within a dozen stades, Pericles was sure that the nearest ship belonged to his family. I thought I saw public ships like the ones Themistocles had built — smaller and lighter that anything in the Persian fleet.

I was the first man off my Lydia . Not a ship had moved off the opposite shore.

Cimon’s spot on the beach was empty, as were those of half a dozen other enterprising captains, and when I went up the beach, Eurybiades met me hand on hip.

‘Next time you wish to scout, ask permission.’

From many other men, that would have earned sharp words or even a blow. But Eurybiades was not one of them, and I was rueful.

‘Of course, I want your news,’ he said.

There were cries from the main beach.

I raised my hand. ‘Ignore them,’ I said. ‘It’s the Athenian reserve squadron. I’m. . almost sure.’

Eurybiades listened to my explanation and shook his head. ‘I will not wager Greece on the word of a fifteen-year-old Athenian boy,’ he said, and the whole weary fleet was ordered to sea — into the teeth of the rising wind.

We were better men in every way than we had been four weeks before off the beach of Marathon. And Eurybiades was absolutely correct. If we were seeing the two hundred Persian ships of their flanking force, it was our best hope to crush them before they made camp behind us — or even reunited with the main fleet at Aphetae.

But of course, they were Athenians and Aeginians. That night, they explained how the storm — a storm we’d scarcely felt — had savaged the Persian flanking manoeuvre and blown the Athenian and Aeginian squadrons ashore by Marathon and the north, all intermingled — and how, when the Persian wreckage began to come ashore, the Aeginian commander had suggested that they run up the channel together.

‘They cheered us off Thermopylae!’ they said.

Before we got to hear all their news, we had another stroke of luck — or the gods’ will — in that a dozen Cilician triremes and another dozen smaller ships — all that was left of the rearguard of the flanking fleet — rounded the coast of Euboea and ran towards Artemesium — the same error again, mistaking the landings. Their rowers were exhausted.

They didn’t put up much of a fight.

The Plataeans let the Corinthians do it all. We watched, nearly asleep on our oars. I was rowing, because I was not overtly popular just then, having had my Lydia at sea all day — For nothing and nothing , as a disgruntled oarsman said from two benches behind me.

But when we landed that night and had the trierarchs’ assembly, we had more than three hundred trierarchs.

Themistocles was elated. ‘We have more ships by a fifth of our total,’ he said, ‘and they have fewer by a fifth of theirs.’

It was a pretty piece of sophistry, and we all laughed.

When it was my turn to speak, I said, ‘I am happiest that the enemy felt they couldn’t come off their beaches today.’

Many of the old salts nodded.

In a fight, when you have the upper hand, you are ruthless, lest the other man discover you are not so very tough.

‘I think we must attack again tomorrow,’ I said, and Themistocles nodded.

Eurybiades stroked his beard.

‘How goes it with the army?’ Cimon asked.

‘There have been more than twenty attacks on the pass. Each contingent goes forward and fights the Medes by turns. No attack has come to the wall yet,’ Eurybiades said, and men cheered. But he held his hand up. ‘Leonidas is beginning to lose men. He warns me,’ he looked up from a tablet, ‘that if the main army does not come in ten days, he will have to retire.’

Themistocles stepped forward to speak, and Eurybiades held up his hand again. ‘The king also reports that Xerxes was openly enraged by the defeat of his fleet, and warns us to expect the most desperate measures. The barbarians execute leaders who fail.’

He turned and nodded to the Athenian, who stepped eagerly on to the rostrum. ‘Brothers!’ he said, a little too brightly and a little too eagerly. We were not a crowd of out-of-work labourers. We were tired men.

‘Brothers!’ he said again, looking for more effect. ‘If we can win again — tomorrow — as we won yesterday. .’ He grinned. ‘. . the Ionians will change sides. I promise it. And then,’ he was grinning like a boy, ‘perhaps we can convince the Great King to retreat without the main army ever reaching King Leonidas!’

A few men cheered, but we were, as I say, weary trierarchs, and I think we all knew what it would take to fight again — a fourth straight day for my oarsmen, at any rate.

I walked down the beach to pray to Herakles and Poseidon, and I threw wine and a fine cup into the sea, and I thought of my son with Archilogos — dead in the storm? Dead in the fighting? Alive, and waiting for the morning?

Where had I acquired all these entanglements?

Aristides came up with me, and we walked the shingle in silence.

I thought of Briseis. I prayed again, this time to Aphrodite.

‘Tomorrow,’ Aristides said.

I agreed.

The swell was down when I awoke, far too early. My whole body hurt — my shoulder burned, and my hand was infected. It throbbed, and my arm was hot, and I could not get back to sleep.

I opened the bandage, found the red spot, and picked at it with my eating knife until I drained it, and then poured wine on it until the pain was unbearable. And then, again. And then put it in the salt water until the pain was, again, unbearable.

It was to be a fine day.

We sacrificed, and the sacrifices were all confused — some excellent omens and some poor and some merely acceptable. One black ram — a royal animal, to the Spartans — made Eurybiades cringe. When the sun was a third of the way up the sky, the sacrifices grew better, and we were ordered to sea. Eurybiades had given simple orders. We put our rigging aboard the ships so that we didn’t have to protect the camp, and then we set sail, offering battle.

Not an oar touched the water. We used our sails to reach across the channel.

And the Persian fleet began to come off the beach. It was not like the first day. They came off and formed their squadrons neatly, even as we manouevred under sail in sloppy, lubberly confusion. Again, this is what Themistocles had designed and Eurybiades ordered.

We used the sails to preserve our rowers. And to slip east, deeper into the channel.

And they followed us.

Where the channel narrows suddenly to twenty-five stades wide, we turned and formed line of battle. We formed in a great crescent with the centre advanced — the Corinthians and other Peloponnesians — and the flanks refused.

The Great King’s fleet came out and formed in a great crescent facing us, and they were very great. Even with two full lines of fighting ships, they had reserve squadrons at the tips and behind the centre.