Æschylus says that Xerxes’ orders were that the fleet should put out after nightfall, and that “the close array of ships should be drawn up in three ranks to guard the exits of the straits and the roaring firths,” while others should circumnavigate the “Island of Ajax,” so as to close that line of retreat to the Greek fleet.
Diodorus is practically in agreement with Æschylus in so far as the latter goes. Diod xi. 17. The king, he says, placed credence in the message which he had received, and hastened to prevent the naval forces of the Greeks from getting near the land army. He therefore immediately despatched the Egyptian contingent, ordering it to block the passage between Salamis and the Megarid.[161] Cf. Plut. Them. 12. The rest of the ships he sent towards Salamis, ordering them to attack the enemy, and decide the struggle by a naval battle.
It is clear, then, that neither Æschylus nor Diodorus has any mention of a movement of the Persian fleet from Phaleron until after the receipt of Themistocles’ message; and Æschylus expressly states that the movement to the east end of the strait was made after the fall of night. Plut. Them. 12. As has been already pointed out, if it had been made during the daytime, the Greeks on board the fleet, among whom was Æschylus, could not have failed to know of it.
Plutarch, though unreliable as an independent witness, is in agreement with Æschylus and Diodorus as to the Persian movement being subsequent to the receipt of Themistocles’ message.
In connection with the blocking of the eastern strait an important measure was taken. H. viii. 76. Persian troops were landed on the island of Psyttaleia. Herodotus describes this as being subsequent to the receipt of Themistocles’ message. Æsch. Pers. 452. Both he and Æschylus say that the measure was taken in order that the troops there might save such Persians and destroy such Greeks as were driven on to it in the stress of the battle.
For some reason, then, the Persian commanders supposed that the island would play a prominent part in the battle as designed by them. It is impossible that they could have held any supposition of the kind, had their plan of attack been such as is described in Herodotus, for in that case the battle must have taken place several miles away up the strait.
Note on the Movement of the Persian Fleet on the Night before the Battle, as described by Herodotus.
Before taking the historian’s account into consideration, it is necessary to realize, in so far as possible, the exact nature of the difficulties in which, as a historian, he was involved by his mistiming of the Persian movement from Phaleron. He had failed to connect the movement to the east end of the strait with Themistocles’ message. Despite this, he seems to be aware that the Persians did make a movement in the night in consequence of the receipt of that message, and that part of that movement consisted in closing the western channel,—at some point or other near Salamis, he is led to think. He is also aware that this movement during the night, including the blocking of the western strait, was made after, and in consequence of, the receipt of Themistocles’ message. He had already, without knowing it, exhausted his sources of information with regard to the major part of this night-advance. What those sources of information were, it is impossible to say. The probability is that, in the form in which he used them in composing this chapter of his history, they were of a written kind,—possibly notes he had himself made on the subject of the battle, taken years before from the verbal description of one who was present at it.
Turning to his notes to seek for details of this night-movement, he would, under the circumstances, suppose, naturally enough, that the movements indicated in them as succeeding the movement he had already described, were those made by the Persian fleet in the night. Two pieces of evidence support this conjecture:—
(1) In spite of the confusion of his description, arising from the misapplication of his information, it is possible to identify the movements which he attributes to the fleet during the night with the movements of the fleet in the actual battle, in so far as they are indicated from other sources.