Mycale 479 BC

[Patrick Waterson]

Mycale 479 BC

Greeks: Leotychides with 110 ships (3,300 marines and 18,700 rowers) plus help from Samians and other Ionians (Herodotus)
Persians: Tigranes with 60,000 men and an unspecified number from the Persian fleet (Herodotus)
(Other sources: Mardontes and Tigranes with 100,000 men (Diodorus) )

Result: A crushing Greek victory over a large but demoralised Persian contingent on the Asia Minor coast.

Principal source: Herodotus IX.96-104
Other sources: Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica XI.34-36


1) Setting the Scene

While Mardonius was still in winter quarters in Thessaly, The Greeks mobilised their fleet of 110 ships (down somewhat from the 380 at Salamis) and, at the instigation of a delegation of Greeks from Asia Mior (including one Herodotus son of Basileides) set sail for Delos.  Arriving there, apprehension replaced enthusiasm and they waited there.  And waited ...

2) An Offer Too Tempting to Refuse (Herodotus IX.90)

Now on the same day when the Persians were so stricken at Plataea, it so happened that they suffered a similar fate at Mykale in Ionia. When the Greeks who had come in their ships with Leotychides the Lacedaemonian were encamped at Delos, certain messengers came to them there from Samos, Lampon of Thrasycles, Athenagoras son of Archestratides, and Hegesistratus son of Aristagoras. The Samians had sent these, keeping their despatch secret from the Persians and the tyrant Theomestor son of Androdamas, whom the Persians had made tyrant of Samos. [2] When they came before the generals, Hegesistratus spoke long and vehemently: "If the Ionians but see you," he said, "they will revolt from the Persians, and the barbarians will not remain; but if they do remain, you will have such a prey as never again. " He begged them in the name of the gods of their common worship to deliver Greeks from slavery and drive the barbarian away. [3] That, he said, would be an easy matter for them, "for the Persian ships are unseaworthy and no match for yours; and if you have any suspicion that we may be tempting you deceitfully, we are ready to be taken in your ships as hostages."

Leotychides took Hegesistratus' name ('army-leader') to be a good omen, and set forth with renewed enthusiasm.


3) The Battle (Herodotus IX.96-104) [essential part in bold]

96. Having won favorable omens, the Greeks put out to sea from Delos for Samos. When they were now near Calamisa in the Samian territory, they anchored there near the temple of Hera which is in those parts, and prepared for a sea-fight. The Persians, learning of their approach, also put out to sea and made for the mainland with all their ships save the Phoenicians, whom they sent sailing away. It was determined by them in council that they would not do battle by sea, [2] for they thought themselves overmatched; the reason of their making for the mainland was that they might be under the shelter of their army at Mykale, which had been left by Xerxes' command behind the rest of his host to hold Ionia. There were sixty thousand men in it, and Tigranes, the noblest and tallest man in Persia, was their general. [3] It was the design of the Persian admirals to flee to the shelter of that army, and there to beach their ships and build a fence round them which should be a protection for the ship and a refuge for themselves.

97. With this design they put to sea. So when they came past the temple of the Goddesses at Mykale to the Gaeson and Scolopois, where there is a temple of Eleusinian Demeter (which was built by Philistus son of Pasicles when he went with Nileus son of Codrus to the founding of Miletus), they beached their ships and fenced them round with stones and the trunks of orchard trees which they cut down; they drove in stakes around the fence and prepared for siege or victory, making ready, after consideration, for either event.

98. When the Greeks learned that the barbarians had gone off to the mainland, they were not all pleased that their enemy had escaped them, and did not know whether to return back or set sail for the Hellespont. At last they resolved that they would do neither, but sail to the mainland. [2] Equipping themselves for this with gangways and everything else necessary for a sea-fight, they held their course for Mykale. When they approached the camp, no one put out to meet them. Seeing the ships beached within the wall and a great host of men drawn up in array along the strand, Leotychides first sailed along in his ship, keeping as near to the shore as he could, and made this proclamation to the Ionians by the voice of a herald: [3] "Men of Ionia, you who hear us, understand what I say, for by no means will the Persians understand anything I charge you with when we join battle; first of all it is right for each man to remember his freedom and next the battle-cry 'Hebe': and let him who hears me tell him who has not heard it." [4] The purpose of this act was the same as Themsitocles' purpose at Artemisium; either the message would be unknown to the barbarians and would prevail with the Ionians, or if it were thereafter reported to the barbarians, it would cause them to mistrust their Greek allies.

99. After this counsel of Leotychides, the Greeks brought their ships to land and disembarked on the beach, where they formed a battle column. But the Persians, seeing the Greeks prepare for battle and exhort the Ionians, first of all took away the Samians' armour, suspecting that they would aid the Greeks; [2] for indeed when the barbarian's ships brought certain Athenian captives, who had been left in Attica and taken by Xerxes' army, the Samians had set them all free and sent them away to Athens with provisions for the journey; for this reason in particular they were held suspect, as having set free five hundred souls of Xerxes' enemies. [3] Furthermore, they appointed the Milesians to guard the passes leading to the heights of Mykale, alleging that they were best acquainted with the country. Their true reason, however, for so doing was that the Milesians should be separate from the rest of their army. In such a manner the Persians safeguarded themselves from those Ionians who (they supposed) might turn against them if opportunity were given for themselves: they set their shields close to make a barricade.

100. The Greeks, having made all their preparations advanced their line against the barbarians. As they went, a rumour spread through the army, and a herald's wand was seen lying by the water-line. The rumour that ran was to the effect that the Greeks were victors over Mardonius' army at a battle in Boeotia. [2] Now there are many clear indications of the divine ordering of things, seeing that a message, which greatly heartened the army and made it ready to face danger, arrived amongst the Greeks the very day on which the Persians' disaster at Plataea and that other which was to befall them at Mykale took place.

101. Moreover, there was the additional coincidence, that there were precincts of Eleusinian Demeter on both battlefields; for at Plataea the fight was near the temple of Demeter, as I have already said, and so it was to be at Mykale also. [2] It happened that the rumor of a victory won by the Greeks with Pausanias was true, for the defeat at Plataea happened while it was yet early in the day, and the defeat of Mykale in the afternoon. That the two fell on the same day of the same month was proven to the Greeks when they examined the matter not long afterwards. [3] Now before this rumor came they had been faint-hearted, fearing less for themselves than for the Greeks with Pausanias, that Hellas should stumble over Mardonius. But when the report sped among them, they grew stronger and swifter in their onset. So Greeks and barbarians alike were eager for battle, seeing that the islands and the Hellespont were the prizes of victory.

102. As for the Athenians and those whose place was nearest them, that is, for about half of the line, their way lay over the beach and level ground; for the Lacedaemonians and those that were next to them, their way lay through a ravine and among hills. While the Lacedaemonians were making a circuit, those others on the other wing were already fighting. [2] As long as the Persians' shields stood upright, they defended themselves and held their own in the battle, but when the Athenians and their neighbours in the line passed the word and went more zealously to work, that they and not the Lacedaemonians might win the victory, immediately the face of the fight changed. [3] Breaking down the shields they charged all together into the midst of the Persians, who received the onset and stood their ground for a long time, but at last fled within their wall. The Athenians and Corinthians and Sicyonians and Troezenians, who were next to each other in the line, followed close after and rushed in together. But when the walled place had been razed, the barbarians made no further defense, but took to flight, all save the Persians, [4] who gathered into bands of a few men and fought with whatever Greeks came rushing within the walls. Of the Persian leaders two escaped by flight and two were killed; Artayntes and Ithanitres, who were admirals of the fleet, escaped; Mardontes and Tigranes, the general of the land army, were killed fighting.

103. While the Persians still fought, the Lacedaemonians and their comrades came up and finished what was left of the business. The Greeks too lost many men there, notably the men of Sicyon and their general Perilaus. [2] As for the Samians who served in the Median army and had been disarmed, they, seeing from the first that victory hung in the balance, did what they could in their desire to aid the Greeks. When the other Ionians saw the Samians set the example, they also abandoned the Persians and attacked the foreigners.

104. The Persians had for their own safety appointed the Milesians to watch the passes, so that if anything should happen to the Persian army such as did happen to it, they might have guides to bring them safely to the heights of Mykale. This was the task to which the Milesians were appointed for the reason mentioned above and so that they might not be present with the army and so turn against it. They acted wholly contrary to the charge laid upon them; they misguided the fleeing Persians by ways that led them among their enemies, and at last they themselves became their worst enemies and killed them. In this way Ionia revolted for the second time from the Persians.

Commentary
The Greek fleet under the command of Leotychides, a very prominent Spartan, sailed to Delos, apparently at the behest of an Ionian Greek delegation, while Mardonius was still passing the time in Thessaly (Herodotus VIII.133).  They seem to have remained at Delos, afraid to proceed further, until coaxed by the Ionian representatives to visit Asia Minor, making one wonder what they had originally intended to do.  Note the presence of a Herodotus, son of Basileides, among the envoys.  The historian is assumed, on the evidence of the Byzantine Suda, to be the son of Lyxes and Dryo, but one can wonder ... meanwhile, the calendars ticked round to near the date when Plataea was fought, and Leotychides, encouraged by favourable omens (an important consideration in this era), set sail for Asia.

The Persian naval leaders appear to have shared the Ionians' assessment of their ships' condition and their chances at sea: they brought their ships and crews onto land (except for the Phoenicians), and fenced and palisaded a camp around them.  These ships and crews were probably of Asia Minor origin, and fear of possible Ionian Greek treachery as much as any appreciation of the inferiority of weedy and waterlogged ships may have been a significant factor in this decision.

The Persian army at Mycale appears to have been a 60,000-strong contingent either detached from the host Xerxes took to Greece (albeit this deduction is not noted in Herodotus' assessment of Persian strength at Thermopylae) or separately formed, presumably the latter.  Morale in the waks of Thermopylae, Salamis and Xerxes' return to the mainland cannot have been high.  Diodorus' figure of 100,000, if not plucked from imagination, may be an attempt to reflect the combined manpower of the fleet and army, but one should subtract an indefinite number of 'disarmed' Ionians from the Persian total.

Leotychides seems to have disembarked his entire force, giving him something like 22,000 combatants, of whom presumably 3,300 (allowing 30 'marines' to a trireme) would have been fully armoured.  One might infer that the remainder had brought armour and weapons, allowing an eight-deep battle formation with a fully-armoured front rank.  In any event, terrain and the Persian deployment allowed the Spartan contingent to carry out a hook which incidentally kept them out of much of the fighting, which implies that the Persians were beaten by something less than the entire Greek force.

As at Plataea, the Persian troops put up a decent fight until their shieldwall was thrown down, after which it was a massacre, with the Persian nationals standing and everyone else routing.  The mixed nature of the Persian force (not a homogenous national contingent) cannot have helped either command and control or morale.  Diodorus (following Ephorus, a keen Ionian patriot) has the change of sides by the Ionians decide the action: Herodotus, perhaps more accurately, portrays it as the icing on the cake of victory.

[aligern]

It further seems to me that the continuance of the action once the wall of shields is broken down is good evidence for the considerable depth of Persian formations, and for the bravery of their troops, for they stay and fight it out with the better equipped Greeks, even when their main defence is gone!

Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Indeed, if Herodotus (or even Diodorus) is right about the numbers, then the Persians would be deployed significantly deeper than the Greeks.  This does seem to have given their formations considerable staying-power: even with the shield-wall down, they stuck it out against what seems to have been a very adverse casualty ratio for quite a while, both at Plataea and at Mycale.

Good observation.

Patrick