Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy (49 page)

With Miletus in hand and the Persian fleet in retreat, Alexander saw no reason to go on paying hard-won money to his Greek crews. At two hundred men per trireme, he had almost as many mariners as soldiers. So the king dismissed the levy of ships from the Hellenic League, except for the Athenians. They would perform one final service. As Alexander and his army marched through the rough terrain of Caria toward their next target, the city of Halicarnassus, Macedonian engineers loaded the wooden siege machinery onto the decks of the twenty Athenian triremes. It took no more than a day for the crews to row south to their rendezvous point near Halicarnassus, where they set the heavy equipment ashore.

Alexander ignored the Persian fleet in the harbor at Halicarnassus, making all his assaults from the landward side. The commander of the city’s garrison was an Athenian mercenary named Ephialtes, perhaps a descendant of the famous democratic reformer. Though he fought with daring, Alexander prevailed. When the fall of Halicarnassus seemed inevitable, the Persian fleet slipped out of the harbor under cover of darkness and fled to distant havens. Next morning Alexander marched into the city. With winter coming on, he sent the Athenian triremes with the siege equipment north to Tralles on the Meander River. From Tralles the Athenians turned their backs on the historic Macedonian adventure and voyaged home, their duty done.

Over the next three years reports of Alexander’s amazing progress reached Athens. The conqueror cut the famous knot at Gordium, defeated King Darius and his field army at Issus in Syria, and took the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Gaza by siege. Egypt welcomed Alexander as liberator and pharaoh; the oracle of Zeus Ammon in the desert hailed him as son of the god. Amid these triumphs Alexander began to show a new and ominous interest in the sea. He assembled a fleet of Phoenician and other ships to give his Macedonian commanders some much-needed naval experience. West of the Nile delta he laid out the new city of Alexandria, a future cosmopolitan capital, port, and center of learning that would one day surpass both Athens and the Piraeus in grandeur and power.

When the Athenians heard that Alexander had returned from Egypt to Tyre to prepare an expedition into the heart of the Persian Empire, they sent envoys on board the
Paralos
to seek the release of the Athenian prisoners taken at Granicus. The king had already turned down one appeal: he was keeping these Athenians as hostages for the good behavior of Athens itself. Knowing Alexander’s obsessions, this time the Assembly actually found a citizen named Achilles to deliver the petition. The
Paralos
arrived as the Macedonian army was about to start its long march to Susa. In a mellow mood Alexander unbent and granted the Athenian prisoners their freedom.

As the crew of the
Paralos
rowed homeward, happy with their success, Alexander left the Mediterranean behind. He met and crushed the army of Darius III at Gaugamela near the Tigris River, a victory that made Alexander, in effect, the new Great King. At Susa the Macedonians discovered long-lost Athenian marble statues, ancient loot from the Acropolis carried off by Xerxes. During the Macedonian victory banquet at Persepolis, a beautiful Athenian camp follower named Thaïs incited Alexander to put the great palace of the Persian kings to the torch. Thus an Athenian—and a woman—exacted final payment for Xerxes’ burning of Athens.

But the conqueror could not rest from conquest. Beyond Persia, far beyond, the insatiable Alexander pursued roads and tracks into Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush. Like a storm blowing away over the rim of the world, he and his army passed eastward toward India. With their disappearance, a deep peace settled down over the Aegean Sea. The shadows departed, the sun shone, and Athens began to bud and grow again.

Taking full advantage of this halcyon spell, the Athenians step by step restored the fabric of their navy. As long as Alexander’s charmed life continued, they could scarcely hope to change the balance of power. But Athenians were as patient as they were energetic. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, they meant to be ready. New ships, new naval installations, and new training programs would ultimately help restore Athens to its traditional place as ruler of the sea.

PHILO’S ARSENAL

During these years the most influential man in Athens was neither an orator nor a general but a financial minister named Lycurgus. His severe and incorruptible character commanded universal respect, as did his position as hereditary priest of Poseidon. Carefully husbanding the city’s revenues, mainly from maritime trade, Lycurgus first filled the depleted treasury and then embarked on a truly Periclean campaign to renew, strengthen, and beautify Athens. The gods received their due: for Athena, a new Panathenaic stadium; for Apollo, a temple in the Agora; for Dionysus, a theater rebuilt in shining marble; and for the goddesses at Eleusis, a vast new pillared hall of initiation. Yet with so much attention paid to the spiritual well-being of the city, Lycurgus was equally mindful of its naval sinews.

The Lycurgan program directed money toward the military training of the Athenian
epheboi,
the cadets of hoplite class. Under Lycurgus’ efficient regime they spent their first year on duty in the Piraeus—manning the fortress on Munychia Hill, guarding the naval base, and learning to row in the triremes of their tribes. The second year was devoted to garrison duty in the frontier fortresses. The ceremonies and processions of these fine young men delighted the Athenians. So too did the annual regattas. Crews of cadets from each tribe raced in triremes around the perimeter of the Piraeus promontory, from the start in Cantharus Harbor, past the tomb of Themistocles, to the finish at the little harbor of Munychia. Spectators who watched the start could then run across town to witness the end of the race and hail the winning trireme.

In these years the Athenians also made a thorough review of their ships. Ever since the end of the Peloponnesian War, more than sixty years before, Athens had been losing ground to other naval powers in the area of innovative design. The fast trireme still ruled supreme at Athens, just as it had in Themistocles’ day. But while the naval architects of Athens held aloof from change, new types of warships began to appear in Carthage, Syracuse, Rhodes, and Phoenicia.

Now the Assembly ordered the board of naval architects to modernize the navy with new ship types, larger and heavier than the trireme. The sweeping campaign led to the introduction of the quadrireme and quinquereme. Their Greek names
tetreres
(“rowed by four”) and
penteres
(“rowed by five”) derived from the novel system of manning the oars. In the trireme each man pulled his own oar, and three oarsmen in echelon formed the basic unit of the rowing crew. Within the quadrireme the unit was reduced to two oars, but the length of the oar increased and two men rowed on each oar. In the quinquereme five rowers were fitted into the unit by multiple manning of oars. More men could thus row in a given space, and the ship could be built more heavily yet maintain a speed comparable to that of a trireme.

In these new ships, only half the rowers needed any experience or skill. While one rower maneuvered the oar handle, his partner simply provided brute force to drive the oar through the water. The oars were worked through an enclosed oar box instead of the trireme’s open and vulnerable rowing frame. The crews grew in size: a quinquereme employed 300 rowers compared to the trireme’s 170. The building of these superships bore witness to Athens’ determination to retain the rule of the sea. Thanks to Lycurgus, Athens eventually boasted a navy of 360 triremes, 50 quadriremes, and 2 quinqueremes, plus troop carriers, horse carriers, and triakontors.

All these activities brought renewed life to the Piraeus. In the years after Lycurgus instituted his new financial regime, the naval base once again provided steady employment for thousands of citizens who found work as administrators, inspectors, guards, scribes, craftsmen, and crew members. The resident aliens who had established themselves at the Piraeus as merchants or manufacturers also prospered. Some gave generous contributions every year to support the finances of their adopted city. Others beautified the Piraeus with temples of their own gods.

To house the growing fleet of warships, Lycurgus and his successors at the public treasury provided funds for the building of yet more shipsheds. At the same time they repaired the Long Walls and the other fortifications. The greatest single achievement of the Lycurgan program, however, was the completion of a gargantuan building to house the sails and rigging from the warships. Later known as “Philo’s Arsenal,” its proper name was the Skeuotheke (“Storehouse for the Hanging Gear”). Never had canvas and cordage received such a palatial home. Like the Parthenon, Philo’s Arsenal was built in the Doric style, but it surpassed in size any temple in Greece. Seventeen years in the building, the Arsenal extended from the gate at the west corner of Hippodamus’ Agora to the shipsheds of Zea Harbor. Philo himself, who had also designed the new hall of initiation for the Eleusinian Mysteries, felt so proud of his naval arsenal that he wrote a book about it. No such sign of respect or public interest had been accorded the more prestigious Parthenon on the Acropolis.

The Arsenal was plain; the walls of soft yellowish Piraeus limestone were ornamented only by gray marble frames for the doors and windows. The corners were given a touch of additional grandeur and strength by ashlar blocks that projected beyond the surface of the walls. Down each long side ran a row of thirty-four small windows, set high up under the eaves of the low-pitched roof. The roof itself was covered with tens of thousands of Corinthian tiles.

On entering through double doors sheathed in gleaming bronze, one passed immediately from the glare and uproar of Hippodamus’ Agora to a vast quiet space, cool and dimly lit. Thirty feet overhead the wooden rafters almost vanished in the shadows. To the left and right were bays, like stalls in a barn, enclosed by wooden railings and filled with equipment. Within the bays were wooden shelves, chests, and cabinets to hold the sails and rigging for 134 warships. Despite its immense size, Philo’s Arsenal could meet less than half of the navy’s storage requirements. The cabinets had open-work sides, so stored items could dry quickly if brought in wet. Space was also found for various odds and ends—anchors, chains, and the thin oval-shaped plaques of painted marble that served as eyes for the ships. Except at noon when the sun stood overhead, the windows high up in the walls admitted shafts of light, along with ventilation to prevent rot or mildew.

Finally, stretching from end to end was the longest covered walk in the Greek world, a spacious aisle twenty feet wide and four hundred feet long. Through this central aisle Athenian citizens could stroll as on a promenade, conversing, gazing, and marveling at the magnificent array of naval gear. Their pride in the Arsenal, like the Arsenal itself, was the mark of a people who valued their past but whose eyes were fixed firmly on the future.

Among Lycurgus’ other building projects was a new gymnasium at the Lyceum. In the year after Alexander became king, the philosopher Aristotle arrived in Athens and made the Lyceum his headquarters. His school of scientific, political, and ethical studies formed the brightest light in Athens’ constellation of new undertakings. Aristotle was a northern Greek whose father had served as doctor to Philip of Macedon. He first came to Athens at the age of seventeen to study with Plato, in the days when Chabrias and Timotheus also frequented the Academy. Master and pupil did not see eye to eye. Plato nicknamed Aristotle “The Colt” and criticized his sardonic expression, incessant talking, and objectionable haircut. Aristotle eventually left Athens and for several years investigated marine life around a lagoon on Lesbos, laying the groundwork for his unprecedented scientific works of description and classification. In time he was called away from his octopi and barnacles to fill the most prestigious academic post on earth: tutor to the young prince Alexander of Macedon.

Now that his royal charge had grown up and left the nest, Aristotle was free to return to Athens. Morning and evening he walked through the groves and colonnades of the Lyceum, surrounded by young disciples. Occasionally a shipment of exotic zoological specimens arrived, gifts of Alexander to his old teacher. Unlike Plato’s Academy, the Lyceum gave pride of place to practical and applied knowledge. Thus it happened that in the final years of the Athenian navy, ships and maritime matters (along with most other things under the sun) were subjected to a more searching formal study than ever before.

One of Aristotle’s followers compiled a book called
Problems.
Some of the mysterious problems were maritime. “Why do ships seem to be more heavily loaded in harbor than out at sea?” And “Why is it that if anything (for example, an anchor) is thrown into the sea when it is rough, a calm ensues?” And again, “Why is it that sometimes vessels that are journeying over the sea in fine weather are swallowed up and disappear so completely that no wreckage even is washed up?”