These movements were executed late in the day on which the Persian fleet arrived at Phalerum.  During the night intelligence reached the commanders that the retreat of the Greeks was about to commence at once; whereupon the Persian right wing was pushed forward into the strait, and carried beyond the Greek position so as to fill the channel where it opens into the bay of Eleusis.  The remainder of the night passed in preparations for the battle on both sides.  At daybreak both fleets advanced from their respective shores, the Persians being rather the assailants.  Their thousand vessels were drawn up in three lines, and charged their antagonists with such spirit that the general inclination on the part of the Greeks was at first to retreat.  Some of their ships had almost touched the shore, when the bold example of one of the captains, or a cry of reproach from unknown lips, produced a revulsion of feeling, and the whole line advanced in good order.  The battle was for a short time doubtful; but soon the superiority of Greek naval tactics began to tell.  The Persian vessels became entangled one with another, and crashing together broke each other’s oars.  The triple line increased their difficulties.  If a vessel, overmatched, sought to retreat, it necessarily came into collision with the ships stationed in its rear.  These moreover pressed too eagerly forward, since their captains were anxious to distinguish themselves in order to merit the approval of Xerxes.  The Greeks found themselves able to practice with good effect their favorite manoeuvre of the periplus, and thus increased the confusion.  It was not long before the greater part of the Persian fleet became a mere helpless mass of shattered or damaged vessels.  Five hundred are said to have been sunk—­the majority by the enemy, but some even by their own friends.  The sea was covered with wrecks, and with wretches who clung to them, till the ruthless enemy slew them or forced them to let go their hold.

This defeat was a death-blow to the hopes of Xerxes, and sealed the fate of the expedition.  From the moment that he realized to himself the fact of the entire inability of his fleet to cope with that of the Greeks, Xerxes made up his mind to return with all haste to Asia.  From over-confidence he fell into the opposite extreme of despair, and made no effort to retrieve his ill fortune.  His fleet was ordered to sail straight for the Hellespont, and to guard the bridges until he reached them with his army.  He himself retreated hastily along the same road by which he had advanced, his whole army accompanying him as far as Thessaly, where Marnonius was left with 260,000 picked men, to prevent pursuit, and to renew the attempt against Greece in the ensuing year.  Xerxes pressed on to the Hellespont, losing vast numbers of his troops by famine and sickness on the way, and finally returned into Asia, not by his magnificent bridge, which a storm had destroyed, but on board a vessel, which, according to some, narrowly escaped shipwreck during the passage.  Even in Asia disaster pursued him.  Between Abydos and Sardis his army suffered almost as much from over-indulgence as it had previously suffered from want; and of the mighty host which had gone forth from the Lydian capital in the spring not very many thousands can have re-entered it in the autumn.