They swept up all those that still swam in their battered alliance of thirty small states, reduced and wearied as they were. Orders were spread in shouts from passing crews, but it was simple enough – attack in formation, before the rest of the Persian fleet could row around Salamis. It was a race against time and the Greeks muttered prayers as they rowed or leaned into the wind.

On shore, Xerxes watched the shifting masses of ships with mounting alarm. He rose from his seat and stood as the entire Greek fleet swung in close, working in visible formation. They sprang forward in white spray, leaving a wake of hulls and dead men. He saw some of his captains try and turn from that massed line. Others tried to break through it, though that meant they presented vulnerable flanks to the Greek squadrons. Persian ships moved in nervous darts and lunges, unable to respond to the formations, lacking the orders to know what to do.

The king watched in horror as his fleet was broken by an enemy no more than its equal, but somehow driven to extraordinary feats. By some madness of their gods? By the smoke that stained the air over Athens? Perhaps it was the sight of their own people waiting on the island across the strait. He did not know. The Greeks had fought in helpless desperation before. In an hour, something had changed.

Xerxes looked to the west, in wild hope that he might see a miracle and three hundred warships coming hard up the strait. The sun was low in the west, so that he shaded his eyes against a sky of red and gold. The waters were clear, of all but the dead. He collapsed into his seat, his legs suddenly weak.

Themistocles howled in delight as splinters filled the air around him. The noise was a thunder and he could see Persians racing in panic this way and that on deck. Some of them tried to leap the space between while the ships ripped past one another. They were killed by battle-hardened hoplites, or knocked back onto broken oars by shields. Sea spray lashed them all in the collision. A cold hell of sharp stubs and cracking timbers churned like teeth amidst the Persian rowers.