Free Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale Page B

of wheat, and according to the Greek farmer’s almanac, her times of scattering and gathering would be either autumn or early summer. Salamis was, of course, an island off the coast of Attica, but it was also the name of a Greek city in Cyprus where the Ionians had won a sea battle against the Phoenicians during the Ionian revolt. Did Apollo mean to guide the Athenians to Salamis, or to warn them away? As for a “Wooden Wall,” such a structure was typically a palisade erected around a military camp, but there were other possibilities. The second prophecy at least contained some hopeful ambiguities to counteract the dire warnings of the first. Somewhat encouraged, the envoys secured a transcript of the Pythia’s words and departed.
    Back in Athens, the words of the two oracles were made public and an Assembly was convened to debate them. If the Athenians obeyed the oracle to the letter, they would flee their land, avoid all contact with Xerxes’ forces, and found a new city far away, at “the ends of the earth.” Some professional diviners and older citizens indeed urged the people to abandon hope and emigrate. According to their interpretation, the gods had promised to protect their own temples behind the thorny hedge that encircled the Acropolis. This, they claimed, was the Wooden Wall of the prophecy.
    The Pythia had given no prediction of ultimate victory, no reference to the sea or ships, no suggestion that the Athenians should fight as far forward as possible or indeed fight at all. Nothing could have been more disastrous for Themistocles and his aggressive naval policy than a sudden Athenian resolution to “turn their backs” on the Persians. It would be up to Themistocles himself to bend the prophecy to his purpose.
    And when the Assembly met to debate the oracle’s meaning, he did just that. The Wooden Wall was not the palisade around the Acropolis, Themistocles said, but the navy. Its triremes, by now numbering two hundred, would be a wooden bulwark for the people’s defense. Apollo had revealed that this floating Wooden Wall would endure and bring benefits for generations to come. The Athenian citizens should man their ships, not to flee, but to face the Persians at sea.
    His interpretation won over the majority. Seizing the moment, Themistocles pushed through the Assembly a series of emergency measures. All citizens regardless of class would man the triremes, most of them as rowers. The Athenians would not wait for the vote of the other allies but would act on their own. At Themistocles’ urging, they voted to send their own ships north to Artemisium, inviting all other Greeks to share the danger with them. The navy’s mission would be to keep the Persian fleet from reaching Attica and the interior of Greece for as long as possible. This bold communal decision set the capstone on all Themistocles’ efforts.
    Evacuation of noncombatants was an essential condition for mobilizing the fleet. Themistocles could not expect all the the men of Athens to confront the Persians far from Attica if they were leaving defenseless hostages to fortune behind them. So at Themistocles’ recommendation the Assembly accepted the invitation of the city of Troezen in the Peloponnese to send their families there for refuge. Troezen claimed to be the birthplace of the Athenian hero Theseus and felt close ties to Athens. Meanwhile the flocks and herds of Athenian landowners and herdsmen would be shipped to offshore islands.
    Once the able-bodied citizens were packed together within the Wooden Wall and their families safely evacuated to Troezen, the Athenian elders would set up a government-in-exile on the island of Salamis. This base, while still on Athenian territory, would remain secure so long as Athenian triremes could hold off the Great King’s armada. As for Salamis, Themistocles managed to convince the Assembly that the oracle would not have called the island “divine” if it were going to bring harm to