From Publishers Weekly
This engaging and informative account of the 480 B. C. showdown between Greece and Persia relies on the conflict’s foremost ancient chronicler, Herodotus, whom Strauss deems an "excellent historian" and "mainly reliable." While gently correcting some of Herodotus’s claims, military historian Strauss (Athens After the Peloponnesian War) stays faithful to his trademark blend of sensationalism and skepticism. He regales readers with lurid Herodotian anecdotes about oracles and omens, vengeful eunuchs and labyrinthine double crosses among the fractious Greeks, and paints colorful portraits of the cruel and impious Xerxes, the admiral-queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus ("combines the cunning of Athena and the seductiveness of Aphrodite") and the Athenian leader Themistocles, whose blend of military genius, charisma and manipulativeness obliterated the line between statesmanship and treason. Also in keeping with the spirit of Greek sources, Strauss celebrates their victory as a triumph of democracy and nationalism over a polyglot despotism, of the common Greek rower over the Persian aristocrat. At the same time, Strauss draws on other contemporary accounts as well as on modern scholarship to detail the Persian campaign in Greece and flesh out a picture of society and warfare in the ancient world, illuminating such topics as Persian court protocol, the prayers of Corinthian temple prostitutes and the proper method of ramming an enemy trireme. His combination of erudite scholarship, well-paced storytelling and vivid color commentary make this an appealing popular history for the general reader.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - This account of one of history's most famous battles has a fresh, invigorating tone. In 480 B.C., Xerxes, king of the Persian Empire, took a huge army and navy to invade Greece. Ten years earlier, his father's invasion to punish Greece for aiding Persia's rebelling subject states had failed. This time, Xerxes intended to get it right. Herodotus, Aeschylus, and Plutarch are the author's main sources, but he enriches the telling with details obtained from archaeological digs. Sights, sounds, and smells are evocatively described, whether Strauss is showing how the rowers powered their triremes or speculating about the dress of the participants at Xerxes's council. Although the improbable Greek victory is well known, the tension builds as Themistocles's traps are carefully sprung. Strauss is respectful toward his sources, but he corrects probable errors and exaggerations. Despite the huge number of known participants, he focuses on the most significant, so that readers aren't swamped by a recitation of names. When unfamiliar places are mentioned, he gives the modern names as well. In addition to being an engrossing story of an improbable battle, this book is an excellent, compact study of daily life in the fifth century. A timetable and photographs of Salamis and archaeological artifacts are included. - Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In 1851, Edward Creasey published his famous book on 15 "decisive" battles, battles that had determined the course of history. The most recent was Waterloo (1815 A.D.) and the earliest Salamis (480 B.C.), a naval battle between a small alliance of Greek city-states and an empire that ruled the territory from the Indus river to the Greek islands of the Aegean. It was indeed a decisive battle; a Persian victory would have strangled Athenian democracy before it could produce the work of the tragic poets, historians and philosophers that shaped and inspired the European Renaissance. But Salamis was no easy victory, and this account of it by a history professor who is an expert on naval warfare with a gift for vivid narrative brings it, in all its suspense, its complications, its surprises and its cast of extraordinary characters, to fervent and turbulent life.In 490 B.C., the Persian Great King Darius, as retaliation for Athenian support of Greek cities that had rebelled against Persian rule, sent an expeditionary force that landed at Marathon, only to be defeated and driven back to its ships by Athenian infantry. Darius vowed revenge, but it was his successor, Xerxes, who in 480 B.C. moved against Greece in overwhelming military and naval force, not just to punish Athens but to add the whole of Greece to the Persian empire. In the intervening years, however, Athens, on the initiative of Themistocles, had transformed itself into a major naval power, with a fleet of 200 triremes.A trireme was a war galley propelled by 170 oarsmen seated at three different levels. It is only in recent years that scholars and naval experts have figured out how the oars were arranged, and the Greek navy now has a flagship trireme for use on ceremonial occasions. The oarsmen were Athenian citizens, not, as in some galleys that sailed the Mediterranean in later centuries, slaves or convicts; the ship also carried archers and marines for boarding. But the main offensive technique was the use of the metal-sheathed ram that projected from the prow at water level; it was driven into the stern of the enemy vessel and then withdrawn. Another offensive technique was to come alongside the enemy from the rear, ship oars and crash through the oars on the enemy ship, leaving it helpless, to be dealt with later. The combined fleets of the Greek coalition -- Athens, Aegina and Corinth prominent among them -- amounted to 333 ships at its peak; the Persian fleet sailed for Greek waters with 1,227, but a three-day storm off Mount Pelion reduced the number to 927.Strauss gives a clear and fascinating account, made easy to follow by his sketch-maps, of the maneuvers that led up to the battle: the Greek fleet at Artemisium successfully testing the mettle of the Persians; the breakthrough of the Persians at Thermopylae, where a force of 300 Spartans had held it up for three days in the narrows between mountains and the sea; the swift transfer of the Greek fleet to Salamis, where the Athenians evacuated their women, children and old men from Athens and the Persian army destroyed the city; the arrival of the Persian fleet at Phaleron on the Attic coast opposite Salamis; and the preliminaries of the battle, including the erection of a throne on Mount Aegaleos from which Xerxes could watch the climactic battle of the two fleets.It looked at first as if the decisive battle of Salamis might not take place. Strauss gives a trenchant picture of the situation among the Greek ships: "a navy whose main admirals cordially hated each other. A naval commander in chief who came from a city [Sparta] famous for its inattention to ships. A naval base teeming with refugees whom it could not feed for long. A set of allies who were itching to leave the war zone." The Corinthians, whose ships were the largest contingent after Athens's, were planning to leave for the Isthmus of Corinth to protect their own city. The situation seemed desperate, and Themistocles resorted to what he was famous for: deceit. He sent a trusted emissary, who spoke Persian, secretly by night in a small boat to the Persian fleet with a message for Xerxes: He despaired of the Greek situation and wished to come over to the Persian side and offered this information, that in the morning the Greek fleet would disperse, leaving the Bay of Salamis. Xerxes fell for the trap and ordered his weary fleet, tired from a long day of battle, to prepare for an attack on the Greeks. There was much to be done, as Strauss puts it: "There are always repairs to be made to wooden boats, especially boats as fragile as the trireme. Oars break, ropes snap, sails tear, leather oar holes break, seats split. . . ." It was with tired and dispirited crews that the Persian ships moved out to block the Greeks' "escape" only to find themselves the target of a fierce Greek attack.The battle raged all day, watched by Xerxes from his throne, and by evening it was clear that the Persian fleet had been defeated. Xerxes moved north with his fleet and army, leaving Mardonius with the army in Greece to be defeated in the next year by a Spartan and Athenian infantry force. The Athenians proceeded to liberate the Ionian island and the Greek coastal cities that had been annexed by the Persians, forming the Delian League that later became the Athenian empire, and Athens was launched on its glorious century. Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Leading historians, respected educators, and fellow authors agree: Strauss’s account of this epic battle is a superbly told, historically accurate narrative of one of the most intriguing and dramatic showdowns in naval history. The author, a professor of history and classics at Cornell University, draws on recent work in archaeology, meteorology, and forensic science as well as his own rowing experience to enrich readers’ understanding of naval history and ancient culture. A few reviewers found fault with some rough transitions and occasional wordiness, however. Still, they generally lauded Strauss’s natural storytelling abilities that enable him to present a complex tale of deception, desperation, and warfare in a well-paced, erudite, and appealing manner.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* One of world history's most significant naval battles, the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.E. has as its cornerstone Herodotus, the so-called Father of History. But some modern historians derogate him as the Father of Lies. A classical historian, Strauss treats Herodotus, who wrote 50 years after the battle, as a credible source, though some details are amendable in light of sources such as the dramatist Aeschylus, who reputedly fought in the battle. However, textual exegesis is muted in Strauss' treatment. In compelling fashion, Strauss imaginatively accentuates the local geography and the experience of battle; however, he is most evocative when outlining the strategic thought of the leaders, Xerxes for the Persian Empire and Themistocles for the Hellenic alliance. Strauss' plausible characterizations of these leaders are tied not only to their political culture but also to events, such as the desertion in sea battle by Greek ships, a prospect Themistocles exploited in his famous ruse, which precipitated Salamis. A factually fastidious historian might disapprove of Strauss' license, but he creates for a popular readership both an intriguing and an explanatory narrative of the epic battle. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Victor Davis Hanson Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institute, author of Carnage and Culture. Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power Barry Strauss is one of the best ancient naval historians alive, and in The Battle of Salamis he combines his classical expertise with his natural gifts as a storyteller to make the inexplicable Greek victory not just explicable -- but captivating as well. The ensuing drama is as riveting as it is historically accurate.

Dava Sobel author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter Barry Strauss is the Patrick O'Brian of the Persian-Greek war that set the course of western history. He builds a cast-of-thousands classical drama as exciting as any modern epic on a base of astounding detail.

R. James Woolsey Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton, and former Director of Central Intelligence Led by a shrewd and bold commander, the sailors of the world's first democracy -- badly outnumbered, their capital destroyed -- drew strength from their freedom and crushed the forces of the massive Persian Empire to save the dawning of Western Civilization. Superbly told, and as dramatic as history gets.


Review
Steven Pressfield author of Gates of Fire : An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae A ripping yarn of a world at the brink of annihilation and of the heroes (and fools) who brought it back from the edge. Strauss's deep scholarship and clear prose bring the men and the era alive. We can see the ships and smell the action, but more importantly, we understand what it meant -- for the Greeks then and for all of us now. This is the indispensable work on Salamis.


Book Description
The battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. was the most important naval encounter of the ancient world. In the narrow strait between the island of Salamis and the Greek mainland, a heavily outnumbered Greek navy defeated the Persian armada in a brilliant victory that is still studied today. The Greek triumph at Salamis stopped the advancing Persians and saved the first democracy in history. It made Athens the dominant city in Greece, gave birth to the Athenian empire, and set the stage for the Age of Pericles. On the Persian side, the battle of Salamis also featured history's first female admiral and sailors from three continents. The Battle of Salamis features some of the most fascinating figures in the ancient world: Themistocles, the Athenian commander who masterminded the victory (and tricked his fellow Greeks into fighting); Xerxes, the Persian king who understood land but not naval warfare; Aeschylus, the Greek playwright who took part at Salamis and later immortalized it in drama; and Artemisia, the half-Greek queen who was one of Xerxes' trusted commanders and who turned defeat into personal victory. In his riveting story of this clash on the Greek seas, classicist and historian Barry Strauss offers a new in-depth account of the ancient battle. Drawing on recent work in archaeology, meteorology, and forensic science as well as on his own experience as a rower (both navies were oar powered), Strauss revises our understanding of one of history's pivotal wars and of Herodotus's classic if underrated account of it. But in addition to being exciting military history, The Battle of Salamis is also a vivid analysis of ancient culture.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. was the most important naval encounter of the ancient world. In the narrow strait between the island of Salamis and the Greek mainland, a heavily outnumbered Greek navy defeated the Persian armada in a victory that is still studied today. The Greek triumph at Salamis stopped the advancing Persians and saved the first democracy in history. It made Athens the dominant city in Greece, gave birth to the Athenian empire, and set the stage for the Age of Pericles. On the Persian side, the battle of Salamis also featured history's first female admiral and sailors from three continents." The Battle of Salamis features some of the most fascinating figures in the ancient world: Themistocles, the Athenian commander who masterminded the victory (and tricked his fellow Greeks into fighting); Xerxes, the Persian king who understood land but not naval warfare; Aeschylus, the Greek playwright who took part at Salamis and later immortalized it in drama; and Artemisia, the half-Greek queen who was one of Xerxes' trusted commanders and who turned defeat into personal victory.

FROM THE CRITICS

Bernard Knox - The Washington Post

Strauss gives a clear and fascinating account, made easy to follow by his sketch-maps, of the maneuvers that led up to the battle: the Greek fleet at Artemisium successfully testing the mettle of the Persians; the breakthrough of the Persians at Thermopylae, where a force of 300 Spartans had held it up for three days in the narrows between mountains and the sea; the swift transfer of the Greek fleet to Salamis, where the Athenians evacuated their women, children and old men from Athens and the Persian army destroyed the city; the arrival of the Persian fleet at Phaleron on the Attic coast opposite Salamis; and the preliminaries of the battle, including the erection of a throne on Mount Aegaleos from which Xerxes could watch the climactic battle of the two fleets.

Library Journal

Cornell classics professor Strauss reexamines a naval battle in 480 B.C.E. that staved off the Persians and kept Greece for the Greeks-and the rest of us. The publisher views this as really important. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

First-rate military and political history, focusing on a critically important battle of the ancient past. By 480 b.c., writes Strauss (History & Classics/Cornell Univ.; Rowing Against the Current, 1999), newly democratic Athens had emerged as the preeminent naval power in the eastern Mediterranean; reports Herodotus, whose words resound through Strauss's pages, "When the Athenians lived under a tyranny they were no better at war than any of their neighbors, but after they got rid of the tyrants they were the first by far." Small wonder that Xerxes, the famed ruler of the Persian Empire, determined that Athens had to be crushed first if his forces were to advance into mainland Greece. Well aware of Xerxes' intentions, Athenian military leader Themistocles urged his fellow citizens to take the defense of the city onto the seas. In early September, the city now evacuated, the Persians arrived and captured the Acropolis after a brief siege, then were lured into sea battle at the Straits of Salamis, where a Greek force of 271 warships sailed against a Persian fleet nearly three times as strong-and made up not only of Persians, but also of Greeks from other regions. The Persians, Strauss writes, "knew that the Greeks did well in war only when united, so Persia's job was to divide them." They were largely successful in doing so, but the successful resistance of the Athenians at Salamis helped inspire other Greeks to revolt against Xerxes, even though the Athenians, as Strauss writes, "knew that in spite of the damage they had inflicted on Persia's ships, the majority of the enemy's triremes had escaped." Xerxes went on to other conquests elsewhere. By an irony of history, Themistocles, miffedbecause the Athenians did not prize him sufficiently, eventually went over to the Persian side, serving as "an administrator in the Persian provinces and a vassal of Xerxes' son, the Great King Artaxerxes I."Strauss's reconstruction of the events of naval and classical history overflows with detail and writerly attention to a grand story. Agent: Howard Morhaim/Howard Morhaim Literary Agency

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A ripping yarn of a world at the brink of annihilation and of the heroes (and fools) who brought it back from the edge. Strauss's deep scholarship and clear prose bring the men and the era alive. We can see the ships and smell the action, but more importantly, we understand what it meant — for the Greeks then and for all of us now. This is the indispensable work on Salamis.  — Steven Pressfield

Barry Strauss is the Patrick O'Brian of the Persian-Greek war that set the course of western history. He builds a cast-of-thousands classical drama as exciting as any modern epic on a base of astounding detail.  — Dava Sobel

Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power Barry Strauss is one of the best ancient naval historians alive, and in The Battle of Salamis he combines his classical expertise with his natural gifts as a storyteller to make the inexplicable Greek victory not just explicable — but captivating as well. The ensuing drama is as riveting as it is historically accurate.  — Victor Davis Hanson