Athens at War: the Navy and the Battle of Salamis

Athens wrote its own victory down

The Sparta module on this option opened with a warning: almost nothing about Sparta was written by Spartans, so Sparta is read through outsiders, and the objects it left behind matter precisely because they are the exception. Athens is the inverse of that on both counts, and the inversion is the whole point of this module. Athenians wrote a great deal, about themselves and about this war in particular, and much of it survives. That sounds like better evidence, and in some ways it is. But the problem does not go away when a society writes its own history. It turns over. An account of Salamis by an Athenian is a victor describing a victory of his own city. That makes it excellent evidence for how Athens wished the battle to be remembered, and it makes it something to handle carefully wherever it ranks Athens above the allies who fought alongside it. And the objects do not rescue you here the way a Spartan dedication did. The material your specification prescribes for Athens was made by Athenians for Athenians to look at. That is not an independent voice checking the written account; it is the same self-presentation in another medium. Working out when an object counts as independent evidence and when it does not is the skill this module is built around.

Words for the fleet and the strait

Six terms this part of the specification runs on. The first three are about how a fleet was built and paid for, which is the part most answers skip.

Match each part of the fleet to what it was

Who pulled the oars

A trireme needed a very large crew, and a fleet needed many triremes. What did that mean for Athens?

• Naval power depended on large numbers of ordinary citizens serving as rowers, so military strength rested on the general body of Athenians
• Rowing was done by a small elite trained from childhood, as the Spartan system trained its soldiers
• The ships were rowed by the same wealthy men who paid for them
• Athens did not need crews of its own, because allied cities supplied fully manned ships

What kept the fleet at sea

Your specification asks how the navy was funded and trained, so here it is as a system rather than as a list of impressive facts. Funding was distributed, not central. Under the trierarchy a wealthy citizen took on the cost and the command of one trireme for a year, which put the burden of a fleet onto many individual rich men in turn rather than onto a single treasury. Crewing was the opposite: it was mass. A trireme carried a large crew, and a fleet of them needed a very large number of people, drawn from ordinary Athenians. Training was the thing that turned those two into a navy. A trireme beat another trireme by out-turning it and striking it, so what mattered was a crew that had rowed together long enough to move as one, which took sustained practice and therefore sustained money. And the whole arrangement was held up over time by contributions from allied cities, which is the part most answers leave out. ⚠️ The sentence worth carrying into an answer: Athenian naval power rested on the labour of ordinary citizens and on resources drawn from allies, and an answer that describes only Themistocles and the day of the battle has described a fraction of it. Saying so is not a judgement added on top; it is how the fleet was actually kept at sea.

Which two describe the trierarchy

Select the TWO accurate statements about the trierarchy.

• It made one wealthy citizen responsible for funding and commanding a single ship
• It spread the cost of a fleet across many individuals rather than concentrating it in one place
• It was the name given to the rowing crew of a trireme
• It was a rank held by commanders in the Persian fleet

The Athenian fleet in words

A warship rowed from three banks of oars and built to ram was called a _____. The duty placed on a wealthy citizen to fund and command one of them for a year was the _____. Their crews were drawn from large numbers of _____, which tied Athenian military strength to the general body of the people. In the narrow strait of _____ the Greek fleet engaged a much larger Persian fleet, and on the Persian side ships were commanded by _____.

Two kinds of Athenian evidence

The Sparta module compared outsiders writing against Spartans dedicating, and the two cut in opposite directions. Here both columns are Athenian, and that is exactly the difficulty.

How the strait was won

Put the events around the Battle of Salamis into the order they happened.

• Xerxes leads a Persian invasion into Greece
• Athens is abandoned and the Athenians put their trust in the fleet instead of the city
• The Greek fleet gathers in the narrow water off Salamis
• Themistocles argues for fighting in the narrows rather than in open sea
• The Persian fleet enters the strait, where its greater numbers cannot be spread out
• The Greek ships, quicker to turn in the confined water, break up the Persian line

Names and choices at Salamis

The figures your specification names, and the two decisions that made the difference. Answer from memory.

An object that argues

Your specification prescribes several material sources for this topic, including a red-figure kylix showing Persian against Greek combat. A kylix is a drinking cup. That single fact is the whole reading. The question: what does the cup tell us about Athens at war? A weak answer: "It shows a Greek fighting a Persian, so it tells us what the fighting looked like." A strong answer: "It is a cup, made to be handled and looked at at an Athenian drinking party. The scene on it is therefore a chosen image of the enemy, produced for Athenians by Athenians. As evidence of how Athenians pictured Persians and wanted the war seen, it is first-hand and very good. As a record of any actual engagement it is worth almost nothing, because nobody painting a cup was reporting." ⚠️ Now the move this module exists to teach, and it is a correction to something you might have carried over. The Sparta module used a dedicated helmet, and that object could establish what no written account could, because Spartans left almost no writing and the helmet was theirs. This cup does not work that way. Athens produced plenty of writing about this war, and the cup was made by the same society, for the same audience, celebrating the same victory. It does not stand outside the Athenian account; it belongs to it. An object is an independent voice only when it comes from outside the story you are testing, and asking where an object came from before using it is a habit worth more than any fact in this module.

Spot the answer that celebrates

Four sentences about Athens at war. Select the ONE that celebrates the victory rather than explaining it.

• The Greek fleet fought in a narrow strait where the larger Persian fleet could not spread out.
• Salamis was the finest hour of the free world, and proves what free men will always achieve against a tyrant.
• Athenian naval power depended on large numbers of ordinary citizens rowing, and on resources drawn from allied cities.
• Most surviving accounts of the battle were written by Greeks, with Athens describing a victory of its own.

Say whose victory it is

Assemble a sentence that reports what we know about Salamis and where it comes from.

Weighing a victory told by its winners

You are asked what the evidence allows you to say about Athens at war. Work through each decision.

• An Athenian account credits Athens with winning the battle almost single-handed. How do you use it?
• A question asks what Athenian naval power rested on. What must your answer include?
• You want to use the painted cup as evidence. What can it establish?
• A classmate writes that the Spartan dedicated helmet and the Athenian painted cup are the same kind of evidence, because both are objects. What is the problem?

Write about Athens at sea and its evidence

A classmate has written that Salamis is easy to study because, unlike Sparta, Athens left plenty of its own evidence. Write the answer that complicates that.

• Explain how the Athenian fleet was funded and how it was crewed, and what that meant for who Athenian military power depended on
• Explain what made the narrow water at Salamis favourable to the Greek fleet
• Explain what an Athenian written account of the battle is good evidence for, and where it needs handling with care
• Explain what the prescribed objects can add, and why an Athenian object is not an independent check on an Athenian account
• Finish by saying what you can and cannot claim about Salamis on this evidence