The pursuit was not continued far beyond the straits. The Greeks hesitated to venture into open waters where numbers might tell against them if the Persians rallied, and they drew back to their morning anchorage. The remnant of the Persian fleet anchored off the coast near Phalerum, the port of Athens, or took refuge in the small harbour. They were rejoined by a detachment which had been sent to round the south side of Salamis to attack the western entrance of the straits, but which for some reason had never been engaged during the day.
The victorious Greeks did not realize the full extent of their triumph. They expected to be attacked again next morning, and hoped to repeat the manœuvre which had been so far successful, of engaging the enemy in the narrows with each flank protected by the shore, and no room for a superior force to form in the actual line of fighting contact. But though they did not yet realize the fact, they had won a decisive victory. Xerxes had been so impressed by the failure of his great armada to force the narrows of Salamis that he had changed all his plans.
In the night after the battle he held a council of war. It was decided that the attack should not be renewed, for there was no prospect of a second attempt giving better results. Artemisia was directed to convey Prince Artaxerxes, the heir of the Empire, back to Asia. Xerxes himself would lead back to the bridge of the Hellespont the main body of his immense army, for to attempt to maintain it in Greece during the winter would have meant famine in its camps. The fleet was to sail at once for the northern Archipelago, and limit its operations to guarding the bridge of the Hellespont and protecting the convoys for the army. When the winter came it would have to be laid up; but by that time it was hoped Xerxes and the main body would be safe in Asia. Mardonius, the most trusted of his satraps, was to occupy northern Greece with a picked force of 300,000 men, with which he was to attempt the conquest of the Peloponnesus next year.
The Persian fleet sailed from the roadstead of Phalerum during that same night. How far the crews were demoralized by the defeat of the previous day is shown by the fact that there was something of a panic as the white cliffs of Sunium glimmered through the darkness in the moonlight and were mistaken for the sails of hostile Greek warships menacing the line of retreat. The Persians stood far out to sea to avoid these imaginary enemies. When the day broke Themistocles and Eurybiades could hardly credit the report that all the ships of Asia had disappeared from their anchorage of the evening before. The Athenian admiral urged immediate pursuit, the Spartan general hesitated and at last gave a reluctant consent. The fleet sailed as far as the island of Andros, but found no trace of the enemy. In vain Themistocles urged that it should go further, and if it failed to find the enemy's fleet, at least show itself in the harbours of Asia and try to rouse Ionia to revolt. Eurybiades declared that enough had been accomplished, and refused to risk a voyage across the Archipelago in the late autumn. So the victorious fleet returned to Salamis, and thence the various contingents dispersed to be laid up for the winter in sheltered harbours and on level beaches, where a stockade could be erected and a guard left to protect the ships till the fine weather of next spring allowed them to be launched again.
When Xerxes reached the Hellespont with his army, after having lost heavily by disease and famine in his weary march through Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, he found that the long bridge with which he had linked together Europe and Asia had been swept away by a storm. But the remnant of his fleet was there waiting to ferry across the strait what was left of his army, now diminished by many hundreds of thousands.
The next year witnessed the destruction both of the army left under Mardonius in northern Greece and of the remainder of the Persian fleet that had fought at Salamis. Pausanias, with a hundred thousand Greeks, routed the Persian army at Platæa. A fleet of 110 triremes, under the admirals Leotychides and Xantippus, sailed across the Archipelago in search of the Persian fleet. They found it in the waters of Samos, but the enemy retired towards the mainland without giving battle. The Asiatics were disheartened and divided. The Ionians were suspected of disaffection. The Phœnicians were anxious only to return in safety to their own country and resume their peaceful trading, and as soon as they were out of sight of the Greeks, they deserted the Persian fleet, and sailed southwards, bound for Tyre and Sidon.
What was left of the fleet anchored under the headland of Mycale. There was no sign of a Greek pursuit. Rumour reported that the Athenian and Spartan admirals were intent only on securing possession of the islands, and would not venture on any enterprise against the coast of Asia. Perhaps it was because he still feared to risk another engagement on the sea, that the Persian admiral found a pretext for laying up his ships. He declared that they were so foul with weeds and barnacles that, as a prelude to any further operations, they must be beached and cleaned. They were therefore hauled ashore under the headland, and a stockade was erected round them, the fleet thus becoming a fortified camp guarded by its crews.
And then the dreaded Greek fleet appeared. Its hundred triremes could disembark some twenty thousand men, for arms were provided even for the rowers. A landing from low-sided ships of light draught was an easy matter. They were driven in a long line towards the shore. As they grounded, the warriors sprang into the water and waded to land. The rowers left their oars, grasped spear or sword, and followed them. The stockade was stormed; the ships inside it, dry with the heat of the Asiatic sun, and with seams oozing with tar, were set on fire and were soon burning fiercely. As the flames died down and the pall of smoke drifted far over the promontory of Mycale, a mass of charred timbers was all that was left of the great armada of Asia, and the victorious Greeks sailed homewards with the news that the full fruits of Salamis had been garnered.