Every ship had thirty such men on board; all, it is probable, uniformly armed, and all animated by one and the same spirit.

To this force the Persians must have owed it mainly that their great fleets were not mere congeries of mutually repellant atoms, but were capable of acting against an enemy with a fair amount of combination and singleness of purpose.
When a fleet accompanied a land army upon an expedition, it was usually placed under the same commander.

This commander, however, was not expected to adventure himself on board much less to take the direction of a sea-fight.

He intrusted the fleet to an officer, or officers, whom he nominated, and was content himself with the conduct of operations ashore.

Occasionally the land and sea forces were assigned to distinct commanders of co-ordinate authority--an arrangement which led naturally, to misunderstanding and quarrel.
The tactics of a Persian fleet seem to have been of the simplest kind Confident in their numbers, until experience had taught them the fallaciousness of such a ground of hope, they were chiefly anxious that their enemy should not escape.