It appears that his communications, respecting the effects of the storm and the condition of the Persian fleet, somewhat reassured the Greeks, who resolved during the ensuing night to sail from their station at Artemisium for the purpose of surprising the detached squadron of two hundred ships, and who even became bold enough, under the inspirations of Themistoklês, to go out and offer battle to the main fleet near Aphetæ.[191] Wanting to acquire some practical experience, which neither leaders nor soldiers as yet possessed, of the manner in which Phœnicians and others in the Persian fleet handled and manœuvred their ships, they waited till a late hour of the afternoon, when little daylight remained.[192] Their boldness in thus advancing out, with inferior numbers and even inferior ships, astonished the Persian admirals, and distressed the Ionians and other subject Greeks who were serving them as unwilling auxiliaries: to both it seemed that the victory of the Persian fleet, which was speedily brought forth to battle, and was numerous enough to encompass the Greeks, would be certain as well as complete. The Greek ships were at first marshalled in a circle, with the sterns in the interior, and presenting their prows in front at all points of the circumference;[193] in this position, compressed into a narrow space, they seemed to be awaiting the attack of the enemy, who formed a larger circle around them: but on a second signal given, their ships assumed the aggressive, rowed out from the inner circle in direct impact against the hostile ships around, and took or disabled no less than thirty of them: in one of which Philaon, brother of Gorgus, despot of Salamis in Cyprus, was made prisoner. Such unexpected forwardness at first disconcerted the Persians, who however rallied and inflicted considerable damage and loss on the Greeks: but the near approach of night put an end to the combat, and each fleet retired to its former station,—the Persians to Aphetæ, the Greeks to Artemisium.[194] [191] Diodorus, xi, 12. [192] Herodot. viii, 9. δείλην ὀψίην γινομένην τῆς ἡμέρης φυλάξαντες, αὐτοὶ ἐπανέπλωον ἐπὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους, ἀπόπειραν αὐτῶν ποιήσασθαι βουλόμενοι τῆς τε μάχης καὶ τοῦ διεκπλόου. [193] Compare the description in Thucyd. ii, 84, of the naval battle between the Athenian fleet under Phormio and the Lacedæmonian fleet, where the ships of the latter are marshalled in this same array. [194] Herodot. viii, 11. πολλὸν παρὰ δόξαν ἀγωνισάμενοι—ἑτεραλκέως ἀγωνιζομένους, etc.