t, the Spartan wing also was somewhat in advance of the rest of
the Greek line, the first shock of battle came between the Phoenicians
and the Athenians.

[Illustration: After Grundy, _The Great Persian War._

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 B. C.

1 The Original Position
2 The Advance
3 The Contact]

This initial advantage offered by an exposed wing was immediately
seized upon. While the Athenians bore the frontal attack, the AEginetans
on their right fell upon the Phoenicians' flank. This double attack
on the Persian right wing eventually proved the turning point of
the battle. The Phoenicians, however, had the reputation of being
the foremost sea fighters in the world, and they bore themselves
well. Similarly the Asiatic Greeks proved themselves foemen worthy
of their brethren from the Peloponnesus, and the fight was maintained
with great ferocity all along the line. The inhabitants of Athens
who had been removed to Salamis blackened the shores on one side of
the Strait, as anxious watchers of the tremendous spectacle. Opposite
them on the slope of Mt. AEgaleos sat Xerxes himself, surrounded by
his staff, a less anxious spectator but no less interested in the
outcome.

About seven o'clock a fresh westerly wind arose, as it does at
this day in that region, and as it did some years later during a
battle won by an Athenian admiral in the Gulf of Corinth.[1] This
wind blows every morning with considerable violence for about two
hours; and in this battle it must have tended to make the bows of
the Persian ships pay off--thus exposing their sides to the Greek
rams--and drift back upon the galleys that were crowding forward
from the rear in the attempt to get into the battle.

[Footnote 1: The Battle of the Corinthian Gulf: v. p. 43]

The Greeks pressed their advantage, using their rams to sink an
adversary or disable her by cutting away her oars. Where the melee
was too close for such tactics they tried to take their enemy by
boarding. On every Greek trireme was a specially organized boarding
party consisting of 36 men--18 marines, 14 heavily armed soldiers,
and four bowmen; and the Greeks seem to have been superior to their
enemy at close quarters. On the Persian side the superiority lay in
their archers and javelin throwers. Toward the end of the battle,
for instance, a Samothracian trireme performed a remarkable feat.
Having been disabled by an AEginetan ship, the Samothracian cleared the
decks of her assail