choose a position and another to get the enemy to accept battle in
that position. If the Persians ignored the Greek fleet and moved to
the Isthmus, the Greeks would be caught in an awkward predicament. To
regain touch with the Greek army, the fleet would be then compelled
to come out of the straits and fight at a disadvantage in the open.
There was only one chance of defeating the Persian fleet and that
was to make it fight in the narrow waters of the strait where numbers
would not count so heavily. Everything depended on bringing this
to pass.

Nor could the Greeks wait indefinitely for the Persians. Already
the incorrigible jealousies of rival cities had almost reached the
point of disintegrating the fleet. Although the commander in chief
was the Spartan general Eurybiades, the whole Spartan contingent
was on the point of deserting in a body to its own coasts. The
situation was saved by Themistocles. Having wrung from his allies
a reluctant consent to stop at Salamis temporarily to cover the
withdrawal of the Athenian populace, the story is that he secretly
dispatched a messenger to Xerxes to say that if he would attack
at once he could crush the entire naval forces of the Greeks at a
blow, but if he delayed the Greeks would scatter. Acting on this
advice, Xerxes landed troops on the island of Psyttaleia, dispatched
a squadron to block the western outlet of Salamis Straits, and
proceeded to move the main body of his fleet to attack the Greeks
by way of the eastern channel. The preparations were made during
the night and were not completed till dawn of the day of battle,
September 20, 480 B.C.

The debates in the allied fleet came to an end with the appearance
of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded.
The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but
they would fight with better chance of success than under any other
circumstances.

The Greek force consisted of about 380 vessels. Of these, Athens
contributed 180, Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesus were
represented by 89 and the remainder were made up of squadrons from
the island states. Some of these island contingents contained a
type of ship different from the triremes, the penteconter. This was
a galley with only one bank of oars, but these were long sweeps,
each manned by five oarsmen. The penteconter was an early prototype
of the galley of the Christian era.

The Persians had been reduced by this time to about 600 sh