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While the Phoenician and Cyprian ships were being mastered by the Athenians, the vessels of the Cilicians and Pamphylians, and also of the Lycians, which followed them in line, at first were holding out stoutly, but when they saw the strongest ships taking to flight they likewise abandoned the fight. [2] On the other wing the battle was stubbornly fought and for some time the struggle was evenly balanced; but when the Athenians had pursued the Phoenicians and Cyprians to the shore and then turned back, the barbarians, being forced out of line by the returning Athenians, turned about and lost many of their ships. [3] In this manner, then, the Greeks gained the upper hand and won a most renowned naval victory over the barbarians; and in the struggle forty ships were lost by the Greeks, but more than two hundred by the Persians, not including those which were captured together with their crews. [4]

The king, for whom the defeat was unexpected, put to death those Phoenicians who were chiefly responsible for beginning the flight, and threatened to visit upon the rest the punishment they deserved. And the Phoenicians, frightened by his threats, first put into port on the coast of Attica, and then, when night fell, set sail for Asia. [5] But Themistocles, who was credited for having brought about the victory, devised another stratagem no less clever than the one we have described. For, since the Greeks were afraid to battle on land against so many myriads of Persians, he greatly reduced the number of the Persian troops in the following manner: he sent to Xerxes the attendant of his own sons to inform him that the Greeks were about to sail to the bridge of boats1 and to destroy it. [6] Accordingly the king, believing the report because it was plausible, became fearful lest he should be cut off from the route whereby he could get back to Asia, now that the Greeks controlled the sea, and decided to cross over in all possible haste from Europe into Asia, leaving Mardonius behind in Greece with picked cavalry and infantry, the total number of whom was not less than four hundred thousand.2 Thus Themistocles by the use of two stratagems brought about signal advantages for the Greeks.

These were the events that took place in Greece at this time.

1 Over the Hellespont (chap. 3.6).

2 We are told in chap. 28.4 that the size of the army was "more than two hundred thousand," and in chap. 30.1 that it was "about five hundred thousand."

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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