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H. gives no details of the losses on either side, Ctesias (Pers. 26) gives the Persian loss in ships as 500, Diodorus (xi. 19, Ephorus) says 40 Greek ships were destroyed and over 200 Persian besides those captured.

Ctesias (Pers. 26) and Strabo (395) make Xerxes begin the mole before the battle. But it is unlikely that he would engage in a lengthy and laborious operation of such doubtful utility, while he had confidence in the superiority of his fleet. Again, after the loss of the battle and the retreat of his fleet, he could not hope to carry through the undertaking. Alexander, indeed, succeeded at Tyre (Arr. Anab. ii. 18), though only after defeating the Tyrian fleet, but there the channel was less than half a mile in width and three fathom deep, whereas at Salamis, even at the narrowest point by the Heracleum (Ctesias, l. c.), it is nearly a mile broad and four fathom at least in depth. H. is therefore justified in regarding it as a mere pretence to mask the retreat, unless indeed the whole story is a mistaken inference from some preparations for making a wharf or pier, or, again, an invention on the analogy of Xerxes' other violations of nature (Isocr. Paneg. 89; Juv. x. 174 f.), the Hellespont bridge and Athos canal (J. H. S. xxii. 332).

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