The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost—From Ancient Greece to Iraq Read Online Free Page A
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Tags: Non-Fiction
obedience, still hated the Persian king as much as they did the free Greeks of the mainland. The Persian navy proved even more motley than the polyglot imperial army. 5
Most of Xerxes’ army also had been camped out on campaign for months. For all its pretense of being an imperial expeditionary force, the various allies would be squabbling more the farther they were from home, while the remaining Greeks grew more desperate for unity the more their homeland shrank in size. So far from joining the general despondency, Themistocles was supremely confident in the Greeks’ chances at Salamis. Few others shared his optimism, perhaps because a Spartan king had just fallen in battle at Thermopylae, partly because unlike Themistocles they still had homes to retreat to for a while longer.
Themistocles was soon to be proved right: The Spartan supreme commander Eurybiades did not realize it, but the Persian fleet had, except for a sortie to nearby Megara, already reached its furthest penetration into Europe. Logistics, morale, and numbers had already conspired against Xerxes—even as he boasted of his conquest of Greece. Yet right now in late September 480, few could see it: “We Athenians have given up, it is true, our houses and city walls,” Themistocles declared to the wavering generals, “because we did not choose to become enslaved for the sake of things that have no life or soul. But what we still possess is the greatest city in all Greece—our two hundred warships that are ready now to defend you—if you are still willing to be saved by them.”
Themistocles talked of Greeks being “saved,” not merely “defended,” as if a victory at Salamis would be a turning point after which Xerxes could not win. Note further that Themistocles was making a novel argument to his fellow Greeks: A city-state was people, not just a place or buildings. His “free” Athenians with their two hundred ships were very much a polis still, even if the Acropolis was blackened with fire. As long as there were thousands of scattered but free-spirited Athenians willing to fight for their liberty, so Themistocles argued, there was most certainly still an Athens. 6
What swung the argument to make a stand at Salamis was not just the logic of Themistocles, but also unexpected help from his former rival, the conservative statesman Aristides, who advised the other Greek generals to fight. The latter’s reputation for sobriety reassured the Greeks that the Persians really were in their ships and poised for attack—and they believed the prior messages from Themistocles himself that theyhad better attack before the Greeks got away. Time had run out. Only three choices were left—fight, flee, or surrender. 7
The Marathon Moment (
August 490 B.C.
)
What brought the squabbling Greeks to Salamis was a decadelong Persian effort to destroy Hellenic freedom—and the efforts of Athenians to stop Darius and his son, Xerxes.
The original east/west rivalry ostensibly started over the breakaway attempt of the subjugated Greek city-states on the coast of Asia Minor that had begun in earnest in 499–498—nearly twenty years before the invasion of Xerxes. By 493, after the failure of the Asiatic Greeks to end Persian occupation and win their freedom from King Darius, the emboldened Persians quickly sought to settle accounts and punish the Athenians. The latter had sent ships and hoplites to their rebellious Ionian cousins across the Aegean. Apparently they had hoped in vain thereby to preempt Persian aggrandizement abroad before it reached their own shores.
Despite an initial failure in northern Greece (492), Darius, father of Xerxes, began his payback in earnest in 490. The king dispatched his generals Datis and Artaphernes with a second expeditionary force of some twenty-five or thirty thousand sailors and infantry. They headed on a beeline path across the sea to the Greek mainland. After easily conquering the island of Naxos, the Persians took the key
Most of Xerxes’ army also had been camped out on campaign for months. For all its pretense of being an imperial expeditionary force, the various allies would be squabbling more the farther they were from home, while the remaining Greeks grew more desperate for unity the more their homeland shrank in size. So far from joining the general despondency, Themistocles was supremely confident in the Greeks’ chances at Salamis. Few others shared his optimism, perhaps because a Spartan king had just fallen in battle at Thermopylae, partly because unlike Themistocles they still had homes to retreat to for a while longer.
Themistocles was soon to be proved right: The Spartan supreme commander Eurybiades did not realize it, but the Persian fleet had, except for a sortie to nearby Megara, already reached its furthest penetration into Europe. Logistics, morale, and numbers had already conspired against Xerxes—even as he boasted of his conquest of Greece. Yet right now in late September 480, few could see it: “We Athenians have given up, it is true, our houses and city walls,” Themistocles declared to the wavering generals, “because we did not choose to become enslaved for the sake of things that have no life or soul. But what we still possess is the greatest city in all Greece—our two hundred warships that are ready now to defend you—if you are still willing to be saved by them.”
Themistocles talked of Greeks being “saved,” not merely “defended,” as if a victory at Salamis would be a turning point after which Xerxes could not win. Note further that Themistocles was making a novel argument to his fellow Greeks: A city-state was people, not just a place or buildings. His “free” Athenians with their two hundred ships were very much a polis still, even if the Acropolis was blackened with fire. As long as there were thousands of scattered but free-spirited Athenians willing to fight for their liberty, so Themistocles argued, there was most certainly still an Athens. 6
What swung the argument to make a stand at Salamis was not just the logic of Themistocles, but also unexpected help from his former rival, the conservative statesman Aristides, who advised the other Greek generals to fight. The latter’s reputation for sobriety reassured the Greeks that the Persians really were in their ships and poised for attack—and they believed the prior messages from Themistocles himself that theyhad better attack before the Greeks got away. Time had run out. Only three choices were left—fight, flee, or surrender. 7
The Marathon Moment (
August 490 B.C.
)
What brought the squabbling Greeks to Salamis was a decadelong Persian effort to destroy Hellenic freedom—and the efforts of Athenians to stop Darius and his son, Xerxes.
The original east/west rivalry ostensibly started over the breakaway attempt of the subjugated Greek city-states on the coast of Asia Minor that had begun in earnest in 499–498—nearly twenty years before the invasion of Xerxes. By 493, after the failure of the Asiatic Greeks to end Persian occupation and win their freedom from King Darius, the emboldened Persians quickly sought to settle accounts and punish the Athenians. The latter had sent ships and hoplites to their rebellious Ionian cousins across the Aegean. Apparently they had hoped in vain thereby to preempt Persian aggrandizement abroad before it reached their own shores.
Despite an initial failure in northern Greece (492), Darius, father of Xerxes, began his payback in earnest in 490. The king dispatched his generals Datis and Artaphernes with a second expeditionary force of some twenty-five or thirty thousand sailors and infantry. They headed on a beeline path across the sea to the Greek mainland. After easily conquering the island of Naxos, the Persians took the key
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