[138] If any calculation can be made from this very defective chapter of Herodotus’ history, this day must have been the eighteenth day. H. viii 14, 15.The three combats at Artemisium are represented as having taken place on successive days. The last took place on the day of the disaster at Thermopylæ, i.e. the twentieth day. Therefore the first took place on the eighteenth, H. viii. 9. and it is represented as having taken place on the evening of the day on which the council of war was held.
[139] This view is supported by Herodotus’ account of what took place next day. The storm in which the Persian flying squadron is wrecked takes place on the evening of the eighteenth day. When the storm ceased we do not know. But it is certain that the fifty-three Attic vessels must have ridden it out at Chalkis, and that they, after it was over, made the long voyage from Chalkis to Artemisium, where they found the Greek fleet. The storm must have been a brief one; and if, as Herodotus says, there had been a definite resolution on the part of the Greek commanders to move south in the early hours of the morning of the nineteenth day, no reason is apparent why it should not have been carried out. The real design of the Greeks was probably to make an attempt to beat the divided Persian fleet in detail.
[140] Though Herodotus is aware of a connection between the positions at Thermopylæ and Artemisium, there is nothing whatever in his account which suggests that he understood how necessary the connection was for the maintenance of the pass. Had he appreciated this, he would hardly have treated as serious history such parts of the Artemisium tradition of his time as asserted that the responsible Greek commanders ever entertained the idea of such action as must have inevitably sacrificed the lives of the defenders of the pass. He has given the irresponsible gossip and criticism of the Peloponnesian section of the fleet the appearance of responsible and authoritative design, and has served up the whole with copious Attic sauce. There is, however, no reason for supposing that the historian was in any way guilty of historical dishonesty. He simply did not possess that knowledge of military affairs which would have enabled him to see the flaws in the evidence which came to his hand; and this negative defect was further complicated by what was, from the point of view of strict history, the positive one of accepting anything in the tradition of the war which would bring into relief the patriotic services of Athens. If we tone down the intensely Attic colouring in Herodotus’ account of Artemisium, that is to say, such passages as are designed to bring into relief the difficulty of keeping the fleet at its station, we have, in all probability, a good historical account, in so far as it goes, of this part of the campaign of 480.
[141] The manœuvre of the διέκπλους seems one of the most simple things in the world when it has been discovered. Yet in modern times it took the English sailors more than a century of hard fighting to find out its effectiveness. Thucydides, who knows what he is talking about in naval matters, certainly conveys the impression that it was an invention of his own time, or, at any rate, that it had, as a manœuvre, been gradually evolved within the period of the Pentekontaëtia. And yet, here we have it at Artemisium! Nay, more than that, fourteen years earlier, according to Herodotus, Dionysios of Phokæa was trying to teach it to those unappreciative Ionians at Ladé. It is probable that both in this passage and in the one relating to Ladé, Herodotus is guilty of an anachronism in attributing that manœuvre to the naval warfare of the first quarter of the fifth century. The term was probably much in men’s mouths at the time which he wrote, and, in his ignorance of naval matters, he assumed that the ruling idea in the sea tactics of his own day might be safely attributed to the previous generation. Compare also H. viii. 11 with Thuc. ii. 83, ad fin.
[142] There is an undesigned consistency between the two accounts of the effects of the storm in North and South Eubœa respectively. A glance at the map will show that, (1) in the North, the driving of the wreckage towards the shores of Aphetæ; (2) in the South, the driving of the 200 vessels upon the Hollows of Eubœa, both indicate a storm from the South or S.S.W.
[143] It seems to have taken some thirty hours to round Skiathos, and voyage down the east coast of Eubœa.
[144] The identity of these bays with Τά Κοίλα has been called in question in modern times. If this passage in Herodotus were the only evidence we possessed, the question of their position would manifestly be a very open one. All that Herodotus’ language seems to indicate is that they were a well-known feature in the geography of South Eubœa. Had they not been so, we should have expected so painstaking a topographer to have given some indications of their actual position. His silence, and the inference to be drawn from it, is not without significance. The Hollows would hardly have been a well-known feature had they been east of the South Cape, away from the line of sea traffic; whereas on the west shore they would be in full view of all vessels using the frequented passage of the Euripus. I think, too, that any one who has seen that coast of Eubœa, either from Attica, or when passing up the channel, cannot but have been struck with the depth of the colour which the retiring coast-line of these bays gives to the Eubœan landscape thus viewed. Their recesses give that appearance of “hollowness” from which the ancient name must have been derived. We are not, however, dependent on Herodotus alone for indications as to their locality. Vide Liv. 31, 47; Strabo, 445; Valer Max. 1, 8, 10.
[145] It is exceedingly unlikely that the Persian squadron would have been able to force the narrows at Chalkis, if, as was almost certainly the case, the fifty-three Attic vessels were ready to defend it. But had they put in at Eretria and blocked the channel south, the position of the main Greek fleet, in case of anything resembling a reverse at Artemisium, would have been very precarious.
[146] The fact that they were able to single out a special contingent for attack confirms, by implication, Diodorus’ statement as to the scattered nature of the anchorage at Aphetæ.
[147] The effect of the engagement on the minds of the Greeks is mentioned in language which is almost, word for word, a repetition of that which he has used on a previous occasion. He says, Δρησμὸν δὴ ἐβούλευον ἔσω ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα.—H. viii. 18. Cf. the expression in viii. 4.