Plato described the Greeks as living ‘like frogs round a pond’and the sea was always crucial to ancient life in the Mediterranean world.1 Overland travel could be difficult and communications between communities that were frequently near or by the sea was best done by ships that progressed by hugging the coastline. In a world where warfare was endemic, control of the sea was important for supplying and reinforcing troops that were engaged in warfare.
The first attested sea battle seems only to have occurred around 1210 BC between Shuppiluliuma II, the king of the Hittites, who defeated a Cypriot fleet. Naval battles were fairly rare and it was not till the Persian Wars of the fifth century that there were records of any substantial naval operations. The Greeks, in the Trojan War, famously launched a ‘thousand ships’ to regain Helen, but they were essentially transports and any naval combat would have simply consisted of crews engaging in hand-to-hand combat or using missiles from a distance.
What transformed naval warfare was the invention of the ram in the ninth century BC. The ram was a beam sheathed in bronze attached to the bow underneath the waterline. With this a ship could ram an enemy vessel. But even then it still needed the development of a ship that would make most use of this technology. The basic ship at this time was the pentekontor which was a simple, long, narrow, one-level ship used for transporting goods and people. These had long been in use; it is thought, for instance, that they may have been used in the Trojan War. They were fitted with twenty- five oars a side, thus holding at least fifty men. By about 700 BC a new type of ship, the bireme, had been invented. It was developed probably in Phoenicia and it added another bank of oars above the first. As a ship it had a long life being used, for example, in the Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in the first century BC. But it was only with the invention of the trieres (trireme) in the sixth century BC that naval warfare really came into its own. The trireme had, as the name suggests, three times the number of oars of the pentekontor but how they were arranged is, as in so much else of our era, disputed.
However, it is generally thought that the oars were arranged in three tiers with one man to an oar. Excavation of the harbour ship sheds at Piraeus near Athens in the 1890s enabled some intelligent estimates to be made of a trireme’s length and depth. They are now thought to have been approximately 120 feet long, 18 feet wide and 8.5 feet deep. Unfortunately no wreck of a trireme has ever been found but a famous replica ship, the Olympias, was built in the 1980s and can still be seen at Athens’ modern day harbour. Such a ship with its numerous oars could be both fast and extremely manoeuvrable. It survived in use until the fifth century AD. The triremes were made of wood with metal spikes to hold the wood together. The most common woods used were fir, cedar, and pine.
Naval tactics in classical Greece revolved around two manoeuvres. The first was the diekplous manoeuvre, which, translated, means ‘break through and ram’; the oarsmen rowing very quickly into the hull of the enemy vessel. With a fleet of ships this required them to row at the enemy often in a straight line to break through and expose them to ramming. Such a manoeuvre was quite complicated with a whole fleet of ships and needed intense training to enable the right degree of co-operation to carry it out successfully. The other tactical manoeuvre was the periplous, which involved one fleet outflanking the other and ramming the enemy ships in the flanks. If carried out successfully it could decide the outcome of a battle in very little time. An easier manoeuvre than the diekplous, it still required a high level of skill to accomplish successfully. The most successful exponents of this and all naval warfare were, of course, the Athenians. Their triremes were manned by the poorer Athenian citizens (not slaves as is so often thought) and it is said with good reason that the skill they used in cooperating in naval tactics helped give rise to the idea of democracy, which they so assiduously practised.
Bigger boats than triremes had begun to be used by the middle of the fourth century, usually credited to Dionysius I of Syracuse which he developed for his war against Carthage. By the era of the Diadochi they were standard. The tetreres or ‘four’ (better known by the latin-derived term ‘quadrireme’) was the ship of the line, the penteres or ‘five’ (latinized as quinquereme) was the dreadnought and the heptares (‘seven’) and dekares (‘ten’) were the superships and carried the commander’s flag. But all were larger than the kind of vessels that went at each other’s throats at Salamis in 480 BC. And what this meant was that they could not only transport many more soldiers, but also catapults and other missile-throwing machines. Indeed they might even carry, if bound together, siege towers, rams and much else to threaten the defences of ports that had not had to face this kind of threat before.
The names refer to the numbers of oars but how they were arranged is a matter of some dispute, even more so than in the case of triremes. According to some commentators, the numbers used to describe galleys counted the number of rows of men on each side, and not the banks of oars. Thus, the quadrireme has been posited as being possibly reconstructed in three different ways. Firstly, one row of oars with four men on each oar, though this is felt to be unlikely as this would mean a very broad vessel. Secondly, oars on two levels with two men on each oar and finally oars at three levels with two men pulling the top oars and one each on the remaining two. The most obvious arrangement, given the name, of four banks of oars, is a physical impossibility. Similarly, the fives (quinqueremes) are thought to have had three rows of oars, with two men pulling each of the top two oars and one pulling the lower. Likewise, it is thought that the seven had one bank of four oarsmen and one bank of three whilst the tens had two banks of five. But though the technology is debated and the practicality wondered over, what is considered sure is that it would not have been practical to have had more than three layers of oars and probably no more than eight men rowing on each individual oar.
Much happened at sea in the era of Alexander’s Successors. Many campaigns were fought (though for all but one the sources are scant indeed), many developments occurred which need describing but equally much remained the same. However big the battleships of Demetrius or Ptolemy became, they still remained rowing shells that must hug the coast, never seagoing cruisers that could stray far from sight of land. They would be beached most nights, though they might stay out for a few days if it was absolutely required. But, whether a trireme or dekares they were full to the brim with rowers and seamen and they just did not have the capacity to carry the supplies all these men needed, nor indeed the space to allow them to stretch and to sleep once the day’s rowing was done. Water, especially, could never be carried in sufficient volume. A trireme would seldom carry fewer than 170 oarsmen, sailors and marines and bigger vessels proportionally more. A quinquereme would have usually carried at least 300 men and perhaps many more when a battle was anticipated. On an occasion before the Battle of Ipsus, Cassander’s brother, Pleistarchus, is reported as travelling on a sixer and also that he was accompanied by 500 men; this would have been far more than normal, as essentially the ship was acting as a troop transport, but it still shows how crammed full these big galleys might become. So the great fleets that Demetrius launched might be manned by well over 60,000 men and they would have to beach at the end of the day somewhere near where there was fresh water for these myriads to slake their thirst.
Control of the coastline was always a crucial matter and island stepping stones were vital to any puissant commander of the sea who aimed to make his power more than just a mark in the shifting sand. Also because of this, one of the most commonly used of naval strategies was not open to the big maritime players of the period. Blockade was very difficult to achieve because staying at sea was so difficult, even in fair weather, never mind in foul. So, any blockade runner had just to wait until the enemy ships had beached for the night to get in or out. Few examples exist in ancient times where it was tried and none that were achieved without great difficulty. Pompey’s fleet tried to cut off Caesar’s army from supplies and reinforcements after he first crossed to Epirus to track down his enemies in the siege of Dyrrachium in 49/48 BC. The Pompeians were by far the dominant party at sea but they still could not really keep up the blockade for any length of time. Mark Antony managed to get the second half of the army over so Caesar was able to achieve some numerical parity to bring on the great battle he desired. And, if this subordinate had his troubles, the greatest damage was done by the weather rather than the galleys of his opponent’s fleet.
The future rulers of the world Alexander took east in his conquering army were not naturally men of the sea. Yet, they knew their strategy whether it was practised on brown earth or blue water. Most of them were well-prepared and capable of leading navies as much as they were a land army. Some, like Seleucus for a number of years, had naval careers (though after this period he never wet his feet again) and Cleitus the White, before being snuffed out in the Thracian Chersonese, seemed to have specialized in maritime warfare, though he had also led cavalry under Alexander in the far eastern wars.2 Medius, who hosted the party where Alexander fell fatally ill, served as an admiral for Antigonus for many years.3
Ptolemy always kept his eye on developments at sea and led his navies in person on a number of occasions. And of course, Demetrius’ greatest claim to fame, apart from being the era’s greatest besieger, was as a monarch of the seas. Cassander managed at least one victory at sea but Lysimachus and Antigonus of the major players never seem to have ventured on the element personally, though the latter poured mountains of resources into boosting his clout in the nautical arena.
At the very beginning of our period, in the Lamian War, it became apparent there were choke points that would crop up again and again in the maritime story of the Macedonian Empires. The crossing of Europe to Asia was just such a one. When the Greek navy laid its plans in 323/322 BC the Athenian admiral, Evetion, had at his disposal 200 triremes and 40 quadriremes, a formidable fleet manned by Athenian oarsmen, who for centuries had been some of the most expert sailors in the world of the eastern Mediterranean.4 His strategy demanded the fleet be divided; the larger detachment sailed to the Hellespont to deny any passage to Macedonian reinforcements while the other detachment moved to bottle up the 110 triremes Antipater had brought to the Malian Gulf to support his land campaign.
The Greek leaders knew the war was bound to turn against them if the soldiers and resources of the Macedonian empire in Asia were allowed to cross over into Europe. The plan was initially pursued with some success, the fleet blockading the Malian Gulf ensured protection for the seaward flank of Leosthenes’ army, and the Hellespontine task force, though unable to deny the crossing of Leonnatus, were soon in a good enough position to prevent any further reinforcements. However, in the spring of 322 BC, Cleitus brought up the Macedonian Asiatic fleet to try and clear the Greek navy from the Hellespont. The two armadas met in a great battle at Abydos where Evetion had 170 warships facing 240 under Cleitus. The Macedonians achieved a decisive victory. Having won the initiative, Cleitus followed the retreating enemy ships intending to eradicate them from the Aegean. He took the opportunity to attack the second fleet in the Malian Gulf and after dispersing them was able to take command of Antipater’s fleet as well, in preparation for a final battle. The remnants of the Greek fleet had withdrawn south to the island of Amorgos in the southern part of the Cyclades archipelago, 60 miles south of Samos, in the hope that they could escape Macedonian attention and be able to recover their strength and regroup.5 Unfortunately for the harassed and desperate Greek sailors, Cleitus was a determined and ruthless foe. He sailed to Amorgos and forced them to fight. The result was a foregone conclusion; with the Greeks outnumbered and in low spirits, only a few of their ships survived to limp back to Piraeus as the fleet was emphatically destroyed by the rampant Macedonian admiral.
Cleitus, not a man given to understatement (under Alexander he had always conducted any business whilst walking on purple cloths), reportedly celebrated his great victory by styling himself ‘Poseidon, god of the sea’, and thereafter carrying a trident. This sea fight ended an era as never again would Athens be a significant naval power. For nearly 200 years her fleet had been a major force in the Aegean, sometimes dominant, sometimes suffering decline but never to be discounted. The victory over Xerxes at Salamis had ushered in this era and the fifth century glory of Athens was based on thalassocracy. At Aegospotami, in 405 BC, Lysander of Sparta had inflicted a serious blow on Athenian control of the Hellenic seas but, even so, during the fourth century the shipyards of Piraeus could still put to sea a fleet of awesome power. It was this naval capability that persuaded both Philip and Alexander to make considerable concessions to ensure Athenian support in the war against Persia. But, after Amorgos, the citizens would never look out again on a harbour with an Athenian fleet that could hold its own against the other Hellenic naval powers.
The second great battle at the junction of Asia and Europe, in 317 BC, hugely compounded the problems Polyperchon had already acquired at the siege of Megalopolis, but for the self-proclaimed Poseidon it was to have fatal consequences. Cleitus was, by now, the ex-satrap of Lydia, having been ousted by Antigonus, and he had been sent by the guardian to block the Propontis with his fleet. Aided by the forces of Arrhidaeus, the ruler of Hellespontine Phrygia, his task was to ensure Antigonus could not send reinforcements to Cassander in his struggle to win Macedonia from Polyperchon. In response, Nicanor, Cassander’s very capable commander at Piraeus, was despatched to rendezvous with Antigonus’ fleet to try and open up the route.
A fierce naval battle ensued near Byzantium. Nicanor had about 130 ships but Cleitus probably outnumbered him.6 He is described by Diodorus as taking the whole fleet, and as he had 240 ships only a few years before it is reasonable to suggest he still had most of these with him.7 Initially he was successful, sinking seventeen and capturing almost forty ships, and Cassander’s admiral was forced to flee with the remnants of his fleet across the Bosporus to Chalcedon. Lulled into a false sense of security by his apparently decisive victory, Cleitus displayed untypical carelessness which was to cost him dear. He assumed he had rid himself of all the enemies in the vicinity but did not reckon on the indefatigable Antigonus. The latter had arrived on the Asiatic shore facing Byzantium with his army and, utilizing vessels provided by allies in that city, he rapidly shipped over troops to attack Cleitus who had beached his fleet oblivious of any danger:
All this had been arranged in one night. At dawn those on land began to discharge their javelins and arrows; the enemy some still asleep and others just wakened, having nothing to protect them suffered many wounds. Some were tearing off the stem cables, others were pulling up the gangways, others were raising the anchors; there was general noise and confusion. Antigonus signalled to the 60 ships also to go in to the attack and to ram the enemy ships, dashing enthusiastically through the waves. So it soon came about with one group attacking from the beach and the other from the sea that they conquered those who had previously been victorious.8
According to Diodorus, Nicanor also joined in with what was left of his fleet and he eliminated all of Cleitus’ ships that had managed to get under way, except for the one boat that Cleitus, himself, was on.9 His fleet destroyed and fearful of capture if he tried to flee by sea, Cleitus got back to shore on the Thracian side, no doubt hoping to make his way overland back to Macedonia. But his luck was out and he was captured by soldiers of Lysimachus and promptly murdered.
The other choke point was that area where the second Greek squadron had waited in the Lamian War. This was Artemisium and the squadron placed there controlled the channel between the long island of Euboea and the mainland. The men posted there would have been well aware of the other fleet made up mostly of Athenian ships that had waited in trepidation for the overwhelming Persian enemy in 480 BC. But, this time, the outcome was to be very different. Unlike their forebears at that other Battle of Artemisium, who showed well against overwhelming odds, this time the Athenians and their allies fled after a short struggle, intending to try and recoup their strength far to the south.
In 313 BC the straits between the mainlands of Euboea again became a cockpit of considerable naval altercation. The Antigonids were clearly intent on testing Cassandrine power in the Balkans and he had to prepare very seriously against this threat. Cassander’s position in Attica and the south was fairly securely held but his eastern flank had holes in it. The island of Euboea, which was likely to be the target of an Antigonid offensive, was largely in Cassander’s pocket but the city of Oreus on the north coast was not towing the line. Cassander intended to secure it before it could become a breach which his enemy could penetrate. He mobilized what ships he could, thirty in all, and sailed south, passing close to the Thessalian coast where he descended on the northern coast of Euboea. Cassander was in no position for a patient policy and he was energetically preparing for an escalade when what Cassander must have feared transpired, an Antigonid fleet hove into sight. What he did not know was that this was not just one fleet but two. Telesphorus, Antigonus’ nephew, on hearing of the activities in Euboea, had set sail from the Peloponnese with twenty ships. On his way he rendezvoused with a fleet of 100 vessels sent from the eastern Aegean, led by Alexander’s old admiral Medius. Cassander was outnumbered many-fold and events were to show the enemy were equipped with the latest weapons of naval warfare. Early in the resulting engagement, fire pots were dropped or catapulted into Cassander’s ships, four were burned out and the rest were in very great danger of catching fire too, an awful prospect for the wooden, highly-flammable craft of the period. Cassander had no option; when he saw the results of this uneven conflict, he pulled out his ships as best he could, packed up his army, raised the siege and ended the blockade. The attempt on Oreus was shelved and Medius was able to reinforce and supply the brave defenders.
But the course of maritime combat in this age was an unpredictable matter. Often, after a victory, the winners were lax in their precautions, overconfidence leaving them vulnerable. The Antigonids, on this occasion, relaxed their guard in the knowledge of their superior numbers and beached their warships with little thought for defence. Cassander, showing great resilience, called up reinforcements from Athens under the admiral, Thymochares, and counterattacked. The surprised enemy sailors rushed to defend their boats but not before Cassander’s captains had sunk one and towed off three others as prizes, thus neatly compensating for his own losses in the earlier battle.
What is inescapable in these accounts is that the one crucial fact about ancient navies was how vulnerable they were when the boats were beached. Twice in this short period, good beginnings crumble into disaster, or at least defeat, when a fleet was caught high and dry on the beach. Cleitus and Medius had both won victories and each considered their opponent to be a busted flush. They did not take the kind of precautions they surely would have if they had known that an active enemy was at hand. On both occasions, these experienced and usually-competent admirals beached their ships and failed to put up proper defences to protect them. In the case of Cassander’s attack we are not told that Medius’ fleet was beached but merely that they ‘were off their guard’ but this is most likely to mean when they were beached, as ancient fleets did not stay under way unless preparing for battle or going somewhere.10 Neither of these were the case here, but then again it does say three were seized with their crews whom, it could be argued, would unlikely to have been on board if the vessels were beached. The reference, however, is so brief that speculation, though inevitable, has little to work on. It is possible the crews had got on board to try and get out to sea so they could manoeuvre but were still caught by the attackers. Equally, it could be argued that as one ship was sunk they probably were at sea. But this is not decisive as we certainly hear on other occasions of ships being pulled off the beach to be sunk. And it just seems improbable that a squadron at sea with its crew on board and ready to react could be so surprised, particularly when the fleet that suffered defeat was still much larger than the force that attacked it.
But with Cleitus there is no question; both Polynaeus and Diodorus make it clear the attack took place on the unprepared, disembarked (and some probably sleeping) crews. Looking to baggage and prisoners taken in the previous encounter made getting Cleitus’ ships underway even more difficult and we hear nothing of guard posts that should have been needed to be overcome during the land assault that was carried out by what seem to have been mainly Antigonid missile men. The attack from the sea was delivered by ships carrying ‘many of his bravest infantry’, presumably heavy infantry.11 It seems Cleitus put up no palisade or ditch to protect his beached fleet though this was certainly a normal precaution when a fleet intended to stay put for any length of time.
Not that these two were the first to succumb in this way. On a more momentous occasion, almost a century before, much the same thing had occurred. The final efforts of a war-traumatized Athenian community had raised a fleet to face the Spartan, Lysander, and his Persian-funded navy. They did well until, at Aegospotami in 404 BC, opposite Lampsacus on the eastern side of the Hellespont, they let themselves be lulled into a false sense of security by Lysander’s behaviour. He, by repeatedly offering battle then returning to harbour when it was refused, ensured that the Athenians would begin to assume that this would always happen. After this pantomime had been played out one more time, the Athenian leaders sent their men off to forage and Lysander attacked and caught them beached and completely off guard, destroying the last fleet Athens could muster in the Peloponnesian War.
Apart from the two choke points already explored, another region was crucial for any power wanting to dominate the east Mediterranean sea lanes. These were the islands of the southern Aegean. It is no surprise that when Antigonus began his ship building programme in 315 BC, as he besieged Tyre, his eyes were drawn there. When the Phoenician, Cilician, Hellespontine and Rhodian bottoms, that were the core of his navy, evolved into a potent fighting force he directed them west.
It was not, however, all plain sailing for his infant marine. One of his squadrons was picked off by the power most disturbed by his growing naval puissance. Polycleitus, Ptolemy’s admiral, had been sent from Cyprus by Seleucus to help the cause in Greece but on finding Alexander, Polyperchon’s son, had gone over to Cassander he had no real enemy to fight. At a loose end, he cruised the Anatolian coast from Pamphylia to Cilicia. Whilst there he heard Theodotus was taking some Rhodian built boats with Carian crews to join the main Antigonid navy. The new fleet was being escorted by an army under Perilaus who was marching along the coast, keeping up with the fleet. Polycleitus disembarked a considerable army and ambushed Perilaus. The army and its leader were captured and when the Rhodian ships went to try and help he led out his fleet from round a promontory where they had been hiding and captured the whole squadron which was caught unprepared and not drawn up for battle at all. With these spoils of war, Polycleitus returned first to Cyprus and afterwards home to the main base, at Pelusium, in Egypt.
Yet, despite this setback, Antigonus was still able to assemble a fleet of 240 ships, fully manned, whilst yet more were still under construction. He launched ten dekares (‘tens’), three nines, ten fives and ninety quadriremes, the balance being made up of triremes and thirty smaller un-decked vessels; a force that had much more than an even chance of wresting control of the seas from Ptolemy’s men. Antigonus sent fifty ships to the Peloponnese and put his nephew, Dioscurides, in charge of the remainder, who was sent west, both to support his allies and agents in the attempt to secure the Aegean islands that were such crucial bases for the enemy’s war fleets in the region.
By 314 BC, Dioscurides was flying the flag of his uncle to considerable effect in the Aegean. Large numbers of the island cities either came over to him or were captured by his marines. If he could establish the family in the Cyclades many benefits would accrue. Here, fleets based in the south Aegean could ensure safe passage between Asia and Greece. Armies could be shipped to the Peloponnese, Attica, Euboea or even Boeotia with ease to ensure opponents in Greece could never feel safe from Antigonid interference. Antigonid control of the southern islands also denied easy communications between dynasts in Europe and Africa who might want to gang up against them.
If the key points at the European crossing, Artemisia and control of the Cyclades, were crucial in controlling the western seas, further east another place was central to maritime hegemony. This was Cyprus and here took place the greatest sea battle of the whole era and fortunately one we have considerable evidence for. Ptolemy had struggled for years to impose his control on the island and Antigonus was no stranger to the place. He had campaigned there in the first civil war when it was controlled by Perdiccans, in one of the many fronts opened against that dynast. As Antigonus had for many years controlled Syria and Cilicia, the main coastlines near the island, he could always use influence, money and threats to undermine whatever his Lagid enemy achieved there. But when he had achieved at least parity with Ptolemy at sea, his ambitions became more all consuming. He had thought for years of invading the island but wars with powerful enemy coalitions and the eastern campaigns against Seleucus had kept him involved elsewhere.
But in 307 BC all things looked possible. Ptolemy had recently sailed all over the Aegean, even establishing a foothold at Corinth and Sicyon and showing that, whatever Antigonus had achieved, his rival still was in the game. To finally dispose of him Antigonus needed Demetrius’ fleet and army. The old man ordered that his son should secure what he held in Greece and set sail to the island. Demetrius arrived in northern Cyprus with a force of 110 triremes and what Diodorus describes as ‘fifty-three heavier transports and freighters of every kind sufficient for the strength of his cavalry and infantry’, as well as 15,000 foot and 400 horse.12 After securing a centre of operations around the captured towns of Urania and Carpasia, the invaders marched straight to attack Salamis, where Ptolemy’s brother, Menelaus, had his headquarters. He fought a battle outside the walls but was defeated and soon Demetrius had his enemy bottled up behind the city defences and settled down to besiege the place.
Siege engines were constructed on the spot, either from local timber and iron or out of sections of dismantled machines used before in Greece, and shipped over for this new enterprise. Particularly noted outside the walls of Salamis was a helepolis, or city-taker, nine storeys high. This machine, with accompanying battering rams, wreaked havoc, clearing the walls of defenders and causing great cracks in the fabric of the defences. Menelaus’ men managed to set most of these constructions alight with fire arrows during the course of one night but even this success could not hide the fact that time was running out for the garrison. The defenders had fought with skill and determination but without relief there could be only one final outcome, a complete eviction from Cyprus for the Ptolemaic party.
Word was sent to Ptolemy warning of the imminent loss of the island he had been working to dominate for years. He had poured in money, sent his best officers to subjugate the place and was perfectly prepared to brutalize the families of the petty local dynasties. All this in an effort to retain a territory that would be central to the ambitions of his house, right down to its extinction almost 300 years later. The wound that the Antigonids clearly wanted to inflict could not be contemplated; it would ring a death knell to any ambitions Ptolemy had to retain his influence in the waters of the eastern Mediterranean. More than this, the island was the last dependable source of timber left to the Lagids (a crucial resource without which no navy could be created or sustained), especially as the only other reliable stock was in the Levant which Antigonus, of course, already controlled.
Ptolemy realized he was not facing a peripheral threat, this was a vital contest and he decided he would have to deal with it himself. Every arsenal and port was scoured to mobilize a navy and army that might take on Demetrius to resurrect his fading dreams of thalassocracy. By the time he had called in all his reserves and recruited from allied cities on Cyprus, Ptolemy had a fleet that totalled 140 ships, the largest he had so far ever mobilized. Skirting the southern shore of the island, the great armada pushed on to the rescue of the garrison of Salamis. Slipping a messenger through the siege lines to Menelaus, Ptolemy relayed to his brother that an attack was to be mounted by the Egyptian fleet the next day and that Menelaus was ordered to support the offensive by leading his own sixty ships out from Salamis harbour to join him. Demetrius, far from blind to this threat, assigned ten quinqueremes to blockade the narrow exit from the port to the sea, a precaution of crucial importance in the day ahead. He also took advantage of his control of the countryside to deploy cavalry to patrol along the coast, so they could aid his mariners as much as possible in the coming encounter.
Though one tradition suggests Ptolemy had sailed at the dead of night and hoped to enter Salamis without a fight, there is no doubt he expected and prepared for a full-scale sea battle.13 Masts and sails were stowed away soon after the fleet left Citium. Dawn broke early on this summer morning and it would soon have become oppressively hot for the sailors and marines whose journey was greatly increased by the need to round the promontory of Pedalium before the fleet turned north to approach Salamis. Somewhere along the coast south of the besieged city, possibly near Leucolla, they found the Antigonid fleet drawn up in battle order and eager for the fight.
There is considerable dispute about the size of Demetrius’ fleet. Plutarch mentions 180 warships, Polynaeus has 170 whilst Diodorus reports him with 108 vessels. Clearly the similarity of the numbers involved with Plutarch and Diodorus suggests a commonality of source with one or the other misreading the original figure. It is likely on this occasion that Plutarch is correct, as earlier in the year, at Athens, Demetrius commanded a fleet of 250 and we hear of no disaster or act of policy that would have so far eroded his former strength.14
It was a huge war fleet that confronted Ptolemy and dotted along the arch of the Antigonid line were those broad high-sided sevens that were some of the largest warships yet seen in the eastern seas. At about 0.5 miles distance from each other, the two fleets paused to sacrifice to the gods and make the final arrangements for the proper alignment of their battle lines. The 140 warships of Ptolemy’s fleet 15 were either quinqueremes or quadriremes and they spread out in line abreast with the supply ships (carrying the troops that could not be accommodated on the warships)16 well to the rear. Their commander led the left-wing squadron where the largest craft were marshalled and where an even greater concentration of numbers may have been achieved by deploying a second line of warships in support.
Demetrius’ forces were considerably more mixed in type and usefulness than his opponents. At least 110 of his warships were light triremes, while he also fielded sevens and sixes that carried more artillery and soldiers than anything Ptolemy had. The balance was made up of quadriremes and quinqueremes. Antigonus’ son had much to fight for; this was his first opportunity for revenge against the man who had humbled him six years before at Gaza. No longer a young untried commander, but a general at the height of his power and reputation, and as the day would show, as an admiral he had considerably more initiative than his opponent. On the left of the Antigonid battle line he personally commanded the most powerful squadron. Here, there were seven sevens from the ports of Phoenicia and thirty Athenian quadriremes under the experienced Antigonid admiral, Medius. And, behind this front line were deployed in support ten sixes and ten fives. Together these fifty-seven warships comprised the biggest and best of the fleet crammed with ballistae and seasoned troops on the reinforced decks above the oarsmen. It was with them that he intended to decide the encounter. The centre and right-hand squadrons were made up largely of triremes that, though maneuverable, would be at a disadvantage in the melee when the two fleets collided.
Ptolemy gave the order to attack all along his formation by trumpet blasts and flashing shields. His own flagship led the way at the head of a squadron of fives on the left of his line. The Antigonid vessels, opposed to him, were commanded by Hegesippus of Halicarnassus, and it is probable many of the seamen of Demetrius’ fleet came from the same region as this admiral. The rugged coast of Caria and Lycia and the islands of the southwest of Asia Minor had for generations nurtured brave and skilful mariners; the chief pilot of the fleet came from Cos while one of the admirals in the centre of the line was a native of Samos. The lighter triremes that experienced the brunt of Ptolemy’s assault were at a disadvantage as their sea-room was constricted between the shoreline to their right and the central squadron on their left, they simply did not have the room to manouevre that might have allowed them to cope with the larger and better-protected enemy vessels. The outcome in this part of the battle was not long in doubt, some of Hegesippus’ ships could not take the shock of contact and sunk while Ptolemy’s marines boarded and made prizes of many more. The details of the battle are not described but the logic of events indicates that, at the point of his greatest success, Ptolemy lost control of the direction of the battle. His captains may have got carried away by their victory and pursued the fleeing enemy too far or perhaps became involved in securing individual prizes. Whatever the reason, by the time Ptolemy had reorganized his squadron in preparation to build on his local advantage he found it was already too late.
Demetrius had raised his battle cry on the other wing and ordered his high-sided dreadnoughts forward at the same time as his opponent. Ballistae and archers on both sides had opened a withering fire well before the two lines clashed on this seaward flank of the battle and even in these preliminaries the Antigonid sixes and sevens showed a marked superiority. Once the lead ships engaged in a crunching of timbers and splintering of oars all became chaos. ‘For in contests on land’, writes Diodorus, ‘valour is made clearly evident, since it is able to gain the upper hand, when nothing external and fortuitous interferes; but in naval battles there are many causes of various kinds, that contrary to reason, defeat those who would properly gain the victory through prowess.’17 Naval warfare in this age was a lottery. But still there were factors that might give the edge to one side or the other. On this flank the advantage lay with Demetrius, once the two lines were mixed and locked together the greater number of marines on the bigger Antigonid vessels told to great effect.
Some larger craft had their oars swept away by the handier Egyptian boats, but even when elements of Demetrius’ front line were incapacitated there was the second line in support to plug the gaps. It was a desperate affray in this part of the battle, many a boarder slipped and fell into the sea to drown as they tried to cross the rails onto an enemy vessel, and, at close quarters, the ballistae created mayhem with their heavy bolts delivered into the massed ranks of marines on the open decks. Demetrius, himself, was constantly in danger. His flagship, a seven, was naturally the target of attack by a number of enemy ships. Ptolemaic marines boarded his ship in such numbers as to put his life at risk, members of his bodyguard were cut down and he needed all his courage and skill to defend himself. Eventually, with his gilded body armour battered and dented by the ferocity of the blows aimed against him, Demetrius beat off the attackers and regained control of his flagship. Able to look around at the larger picture he saw the powerful left wing squadron he had led into battle had completely routed the enemy ships opposed to them. Ptolemaic craft around him were either sinking or being brought under control by his own men, while the bulk of his ships on this flank were intact and in good condition.
In the centre of the battle, an indecisive contest was in progress. Demetrius’ commander in that sector was Marsyas, the historian and half-brother of Antigonus. He and his Samian colleagues had been handling their triremes with great skill. The enemy had heavier ships but had failed to take advantage of the edge their fours gave them when the two lines clashed. Nothing is known about this contest except that it was still undecided when Demetrius was able to intervene. The signal was given from Demetrius’ flagship and his victorious captains turned their vessels inwards towards the coast and fell on the flank and rear of the centre of Ptolemy’s fleet. The effect was immediate, with the awful threat of being driven onto the shore, the Lagid line crumbled and their will to resist failed in the crisis.
This was the scene of disaster that faced Ptolemy when he collected the ships of his squadron who though they had won the fight on their front had allowed the main conflict to be decided without them. Taking what seemed the only course open, Ptolemy gave the order to withdraw and save what was left of the fleet.
Demetrius had pulled off a brilliant victory, but it had been a very different affair from those achieved by the fleets outfitted by Athens over a hundred years before. Then, sleek triremes manned by skilled crews had been able to achieve victory by dexterous seamanship. But, at this Salamis, it had been different. Here there is no suggestion of the diekplous manoeuvre with a line of boats ahead cutting through the enemy line to come up on their quarter. Nor the periplous where practiced crews would bring their boats around the end of the opposing line to attack the flank of the opponent. It has been suggested that Demetrius pulled off a form of periplous at Salamis but this seems very doubtful.18 His captains did not manouevre round and attack the enemy flank; instead they used brute force to crush the enemy wing in front of them, which then allowed them to fall on the flank of Ptolemy’s centre.
But whatever we call the tactical techniques used by the Antigonid seamen, the victory at Salamis was notable for the innovative use of the long-range weaponry that the new bigger galleys could carry. These catapults caused mayhem, even before the ships closed, when the archers and javelin men could then join in on a devastating barrage. The superships of Demetrius’ fleet, his sevens and sixes had decided the day, not only because the larger vessels enabled much more effective missile fire but they were also able to carry far more marines equipped to fight hand-to-hand. Of course, they also gained advantage by boarding from their higher-sided craft. But, if these advantages counted for much, Demetrius had also been lucky. Apart from having a more powerful fleet qualitatively, with his sixes and sevens as opposed to Ptolemy’s fours and fives, his men had been able to rest and await Ptolemy’s navy who had been tired by the exertions of rowing through at least part of the night just in order to reach the battle.
In Salamis’ harbour, another battle had taken place on the same day. Menelaus had striven hard to obey his brother’s injunction to bring his ships into the battle but his captains had found their egress to the open sea blocked by the ten battleships Demetrius had left to counter just this eventuality. A stern fight took place at the harbour mouth with Antisthenes, Demetrius’ admiral, holding his fives together against the onslaught of six times their number. This resistance could not last indefinitely as even in this confined space the ability of Menelaus’ captains to replace damaged vessels and use relays of fresh marines to make their attacks meant their opponent’s capacity to resist was gradually worn down. Eventually the defensive cordon was breached; the Antigonids found their position untenable and were forced to flee to the safety of the main camp of the army. Even so, their efforts had been sufficient to keep the sixty warships of the Salamis squadron out of the major battle and when Menelaus’ admiral, Menoetius, eventually arrived on the scene Ptolemy’s fleet was already defeated and in flight.
The flotilla returned to Salamis with the news and Menelaus realized, though his ships had won a victory, the war was lost. His position in Cyprus was impossible now that the Egyptian navy could be discounted as a factor of any significance. What allies he had left on the island were bound to transfer allegiance to Demetrius and, deprived of supplies from outside, he could neither pay nor feed the considerable army that was trapped in the city. The sources again differ but well over 10,000 foot and horse were incorporated into the Antigonid army when Salamis surrendered and Menelaus withdrew to Alexandria with what small part of his army he could pile onto the remaining boats, reflecting on the battered hopes of Ptolemaic ambition in the Cypriot seas.
For Ptolemy the day had been an unmitigated disaster. He had committed all his military resources and had lost. Diodorus reports that Ptolemy had lost over 100 of his supply ships with over 8,000 soldiers on board captured. This must have been particularly galling as these men had not even been able to participate in the battle before all had been lost. As for his actual war fleet, forty galleys were captured and a further eighty disabled and towed into Salamis harbour, leaving the Lagid only twenty to flee with. Plutarch recounts that his losses were even greater with only eight warships left to him. To compound Ptolemy’s discomfort, Plutarch goes on to say that the vessels carrying his treasure, personal furniture and mistress had also been captured.19 Demetrius’ losses were minimal, twenty of his ships were disabled but all subsequently recommissioned.
Cyprus was lost and Ptolemy was left with not much more than he had when he first arrived in Egypt. He had beaten the youth Demetrius at Gaza but the man had turned the tables. If the defeated looked to saving what they could, the victors had thoughts on grander things. A charming story told by Plutarch has it that Antigonus was waiting for news of the naval battle when it was heard that his old and trusted agent Aristodemus of Miletus was approaching. The old marshal was in his palace in a ferment of anxiety over the fortunes of his son and fleet. Aristodemus had come by swift trireme from Salamis to ensure he was first with news of victory and intended to milk the occasion for all it was worth in the expectation that his commander’s relief would be matched by the generosity of the messenger’s reward. He refused to tell those who came to meet him what he knew and made his way from the boat to the palace on ageing legs and in so doing caused his master an agony of frustration. The potentate became so agitated that he rushed to meet him at the door where, at last, he was released from his ordeal by the tidings of his son’s victory. His joy, though, did not prevent him exacting a small revenge on the self-important old retainer who was informed that as he had delayed in getting his message to Antigonus, likewise would his reward be delayed.
Antigonus had good reason to worry, Demetrius had been commanding the cream of the navy he had spent so long creating and one battle, or even a freak storm, could have ruined that endeavour overnight. His anxiety would have been great when news had come that Ptolemy was coming in full force to face his son. Like Xerxes, at the other Salamis over 150 years earlier, he could only sit and wait, but, unlike the Persian, he was unable to observe the combat firsthand. At times, he must have regretted the decision not to command the fleet himself but even he, at the age of 75, probably balked at starting a new career on an unfamiliar element.
After this second Salamis there was no real rival able to contest the seaways with the Antigonids. Not till near the end of the first generation of Diadochi would this thalassocracy be disputed. But sea power was never quite absolute. Ancient galleys were just not as robust as later sailing ships; they did not last as long. Large numbers of oarsmen could not be kept permanently mobilized and paid. The hardware, itself, was fragile; the boats would not stay seaworthy for long if not very well looked after. They had to be hauled out of water as much as possible to keep them dry, light and fast and free from worm, rot and seaweed. They were also kept in ship sheds, if possible, out of the sailing season which in the Mediterranean usually only lasted from April till November. When peace arrived, the motivation to maintain and repair fell away. Certainly Athens and Carthage famously had military ports well-equipped to keep their fleets in a state of high preparedness, but in neither case did these preparations eventually ensure against the demise of their maritime supremacy.
And, in the later years of the Diadochi, if the Antigonids were the great sea power they were not the only ones. Rhodes, puny in comparison, still remained significant enough to irritate the pirates of the region. The policing role they efficiently undertook (we do not hear of either the Antigonids or the Lagids undertaking this), meant the freebooters were happy to join Demetrius when he attacked that city in 304 BC. Ptolemy still had some ships that had survived the debacle of Salamis and his senior maritime officers would nurture this remnant until changing fortunes allowed it to become the core around which later expansion would occur.
We know nothing of Lysimachus’s naval resources; certainly in the 313 BC campaign, when Antigonus sent a squadron to help his enemies, there is no indication Lysimachus had any ships to oppose it. This might seem surprising as the Greek cities of the Black Sea coast and the Thracian Chersonese would probably have had something in the way of navies, we certainly know Heraclea had some ships at her disposal. But, surely, he could either not get them to fight in any numbers for him or they were not first-rate forces that could stand up in battle against the fleets deployed by the foremost dynasts.20 After Ipsus, Demetrius could raid Lysimachus’ coastline with impunity, even putting his new capital of Lysimacheia at risk, indicating that the Thracian ruler’s naval means were very slim indeed. His only hope was that Ptolemy might show up to help but that pragmatic ruler was not about to risk what was left of his navy to help a distant ally whose interests might not always match his own.21
All Lysimachus could do was wait until Demetrius had vented his bile, as, despite the disaster at Ipsus, he was still unstoppable at sea. Indeed only when Demetrius’ adventures completely ended deep in Asia in 286/285 BC did Lysimachus even begin to gain a navy. Some of the fleet Demetrius left at Miletus went over to him when his men entered the city and forced the Antigonid admirals to sign up with one or other of the remaining sovereigns who could offer them employment. How many ships came over to him we don’t know (some went to Pyrrhus) and no details of any activity are left to us before Lysimachus exited the stage at the Battle of Corupedium in 281 BC.22 After his demise his fleet ended up in the hands of Ptolemy Ceraunus, where ironically it was used victoriously against Demetrius’ son, Antigonus Gonatus, in 280 BC.
Cassander never was a major naval player. He could mobilize fleets on occasions; invading Salamis near Athens in the time of Polyperchon, he put up a fight against Medius, and when he campaigned in the Adriatic against the Illyrians and islanders from Leucas and Corfu he must have had ships. But, it is unlikely that they were numerous or very powerful and after 312 BC there is no record of any naval adventures begun by the ruler at Pella.
Seleucus, after his stint as a maritime functionary in Ptolemy’s pay, never took to the waves again as far as we know. He certainly had his window on the sea, port towns near Antioch where he must have deployed some ships, but we hear of nothing and it is doubtful they were much more than coastguard vessels. Certainly, when Demetrius entertained him on his great thirteener during the negotiations over Seleucus’ marriage to his daughter, Seleucus did not reciprocate with meetings on an equivalent vessel of his own.
In the end, it was the two who had fought at the great set-piece at Salamis that were always the major contenders: the Antigonids on the up when father and son put huge resources into their shipbuilding programmes; Ptolemy, able to hold his own until the disaster at Cyprus made this no longer a credible strategy, then recovering over the decades as the Antigonids fell gradually from the pinnacles they had climbed.
However, the future of naval dominance after all the old men had died was to be a fragmented one. No power completely ruled the east Mediterranean waves in the generation after the Diadochi in the way the Antigonids had done. The Lagids were still sufficiently powerful in the 270s BC that they could attack Antiochus I in Asia Minor. The Seleucids, the Macedonian Antigonids, the Rhodians and the kingdom of Pergamum all would send out fleets and fight set-piece battles. But, in general, the effect was a sort of balance; it might even be claimed that as they fought each other to a standstill, they allowed Rome to intrude in a way that would eventually ensure the eclipse of them all. Rome, bloodily apprenticed at sea against the Carthaginians, and in 190 BC they fought the Seleucids at Myonessus, in tandem with the Rhodians. A new force was arriving that would change everything.
The ever-practical Romans did not follow the Hellenes down a road of naval gigantism though the powers around the east Mediterranean continued with super ships. Ptolemy IV even built a forty, a monster apparently over 400 feet long and requiring 4,000 oarsmen, and there are reports of ships with libraries in them, though almost certainly none of these were meant for use in battle. The Romans utilized triremes and quinqueremes as the mainstay of their fleets though they also used fours and occasionally a six, and at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC Mark Antony even kept his flag on a ten. But, they did not just downsize their ships of the line; they found a way to transfer their strength in terrestrial fighting skills to the sea. Not for them the subtle manoeuvres of the diekplous or the periplous, instead they introduced the corvus, a hinged boarding platform attached to the bow of the ship which they could drop onto an enemy deck. Fighting a land-style war on the waves, they changed combat at sea as they changed so much else in the centuries after Alexander’s death.