A Greek ship is the first to strike, and crushes in by the force of its charge the sculptured prow of a Phœnician: then the engagement rages along the whole line.
"The deep array
Of Persia at the first sustained the encounter;
But their thronged numbers, in the narrow seas
Confined, want room for action; and, deprived
Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each
Breaks all the other's oars: with skill disposed
The Grecian navy circled them around
With fierce assault."
The sea is hidden with ships floating keel upwards, and with wrecks and corpses. The shores are covered with the dead. The Persians take to flight, and the Greeks pursue, spearing and striking their drowning foes, "as men spear a shoal of tunnies," with spars and broken oars; and over the wide sea wailing is heard and lamentation, until night falls upon the scene of destruction. Worse even than this remains. For on a little island close to Salamis,—a rugged island such as Pan delights in,—Xerxes had set the flower of his nobility, that they might cut down the Greeks who would seek shelter there, or help any Persians in distress; and all these, the bravest of his hosts, were cut to pieces before the monarch's eyes. "Bitter fruit," Atossa cries,
"My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance
On Athens famed for arms; the fatal field
Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood,
Sufficed not; that defeat he thought to avenge,
And pulled this hideous ruin on his head."
