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Updated: June 17, 2025
As soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetae, Eurybiades was astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and, being informed that two hundred more were sailing round behind the island of Sciathus, he immediately determined to retire farther into Greece, and to sail back into some part of Peloponnesus, where their land army and their fleet might join, for he looked upon the Persian forces to be altogether unassailable by sea.
Has Themistocles anything more to say why the vote should not be taken?” “Nothing,” rejoined the Athenian, with an equanimity that made Adeimantus snap his teeth. “We will therefore take the vote city by city,” went on Eurybiades. “Do you, Phlegon of Seriphos, give your vote.”
He then further moved that the Athenians should abandon the city to the care of its tutelary deity, that the women, children, and infirm should be removed to Salamis, Ægina, or Troezen, and that the men should embark in the ships. The fleet of the Greeks, consisting of three hundred and eighty ships, assembled at Salamis, still under the supreme command of Eurybiades.
The Greeks were completely victorious, and their land was saved. Xerxes hastily marched towards home, thousands of his army perishing on the way from hunger, cold, and fatigue. The Spartiatae gave to Eurybiades the prize of valor, to Themistocles an olive crown for his wisdom and sagacity.
When Eurybiades had explained his change of opinion and his motives for calling the chiefs together; Themistocles addressed the leaders at some length and with great excitement. It was so evidently the interest of the Corinthians to make the scene of defence in the vicinity of Corinth, that we cannot be surprised to find the Corinthian leader, Adimantus, eager to interrupt the Athenian.
Had some god numbed Eurybiades’s will? Was treachery doing its darkest work? With men so highly wrought moments were precious. The bow strung too long will lose power. And wherefore did Eurybiades tarry?
Themistocles went to his pinnace, and a cheer uprose from sea and land as the boat shot out to the Nausicaä. Eurybiades might be chief in name; who did not know that Themistocles was the surest bulwark of Hellas? The son of Neocles, standing in the boat, uplifted his face to the now golden east. “Be witness, Helios,” he cried aloud, “be witness when thou comest, I have done all things possible.
Themistocles, on the contrary, felt sure that an immediate attack, being unexpected, would prove successful, and therefore loudly insisted upon it. His persistency in urging it finally made Eurybiades so angry that he exclaimed, "Those who begin the race before the signal is given are publicly scourged!"
He urged Eurybiades, therefore, very strenuously to call a new council, with a view of reversing the decision that had been made to retire, and of resolving instead to give battle to the Persians at Salamis. Eurybiades was persuaded, and immediately took measures for convening the council again.
Yet even when Eurybiades arose to announce the decision, the son of Neocles sat with his hands sprawling on the table, his face set in an inscrutable smile as he looked on Adeimantus. “It is the plain opinion,”—Eurybiades hemmed and hawed with his words,—“the plain opinion, I say, of this council that the allied fleet retire at once to the Isthmus.
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