Note 259 — Chapter XLI · BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES.
Reading edition
Herodot. viii, 84. φανεῖσαν δὲ διακελεύσασθαι, ὥστε καὶ ἅπαν ἀκοῦσαι τὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων στρατόπεδον, ὀνειδίσασαν πρότερον τάδε· Ὦ δαιμόνιοι, μέχρι κόσου ἔτι πρύμναν ἀνακρούεσθε;
Æschylus (Pers. 396-415) describes finely the war-shout of the Greeks and the response of the Persians: for very good reasons, he does not notice the incipient backwardness of the Greeks, which Herodotus brings before us.
The war-shout, here described by Æschylus, a warrior actually engaged, shows us the difference between a naval combat of that day and the improved tactics of the Athenians fifty years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Phormio especially enjoins on his men the necessity of silence (Thucyd. ii, 89).