After landing on the northeastern part of the island, Demetrius marched to Salamis, defeated Menelaus in a battle, and laid siege to the city.

Ptolemy led a large-scale rescue expedition in person, hoping to catch Demetrius between his own forces and those of Menelaus, sallying forth from Salamis.

The battle was a turning point in the Diadochic Wars and placed the Antigonids in a position of supremacy in the emerging Hellenistic world.

During the wars of the Diadochi that followed the death of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, who had seized control of Egypt, had taken over the island of Cyprus and used it as a base of operations against his rival Antigonus I Monophthalmus.

[6][8] Following the battle, Menelaus hastily made ready for a siege of Salamis, mounting catapults on the walls, and sent messengers to his brother for aid.

His fleet augmented to some 180 vessels with ships captured in Cyprus, Demetrius concentrated the bulk against Ptolemy, leaving only 10 quinqueremes under Antisthenes to blockade the narrow exit of the harbour of Salamis and prevent or at least delay Menelaus' intervention.

[22] Diodorus describes the ramming and boarding actions, as well as the missile exchanges, that dominated the fight: [U]sing their bows and their ballistae at first, then their javelins in a shower, the men wounded those who were within range; then when the ships had come close together and the encounter was about to take place with violence, the soldiers on the decks crouched down and the oarsmen, spurred on by the signalmen, bent more desperately to their oars.

Some of the men, when their captains had delivered a broadside blow and the rams had become firmly fixed, leaped aboard the ships of the enemy, receiving and giving severe wounds; for certain of them, after grasping the rail of a ship that was drawing near, missed their footing, fell into the sea, and at once were killed with spears by those who stood above them; and others, making good their intent, slew some of the enemy and, forcing others along the narrow deck, drove them into the sea.

As a whole the fighting was varied and full of surprises: many times those who were weaker got the upper hand because of the height of their ships, and those who were stronger were foiled by inferiority of position and by the irregularity with which things happen in fighting of this kind.Demetrius himself won distinction for his bravery when Ptolemy's men boarded his flagship, "by hurling his javelins at some of them and by striking others at close range with his spear", despite being himself subject to "many missiles of all sorts".

[20][25] Demetrius tasked Neon and Burichus with pursuing the defeated enemy and picking up the men from the sea, and returned in triumph to his camp.

More importantly, Demetrius' forces had captured fully 40 of Ptolemy's warships intact with their crews, as well as over a hundred of the transports with some 8,000 troops aboard.

[29][30][31] Following his defeat, Ptolemy retreated to Egypt, and Menelaus was forced to surrender Salamis and its garrison, further increasing Demetrius' strength.

[29][35] When Ptolemy recaptured Cyprus in 295 BC, and found Demetrius' mother and children at Salamis, he again reciprocated by immediately releasing them.

[36] The victory at Salamis was used by Antigonus as a suitable pretext for his own proclamation as king (basileus), the Macedonian throne having lain vacant since the murder of Alexander IV of Macedon by Cassander in 309 BC.

[37][38] Antigonus' assumption of the royal title was followed by an attempt to eliminate Ptolemy for good in a massive, but failed, invasion of Egypt in autumn 306,[39] and then by the celebrated, but equally unsuccessful, Siege of Rhodes by Demetrius in 305–304 BC.

[41] Demetrius survived the battle, and thanks to his large fleet managed to maintain control of a coastal and insular realm encompassing Cyprus, the Cyclades, Sidon, Tyre, Corinth, and the major cities of western Asia Minor.