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| Ancient History - The Second Persian
War
|
| In 480 BC, ten years after the Athenian victory at Marathon,
the Persian king Xerxes invaded Northern Greece. According to Herodotus,
the Persian army numbered around 2.5 million men in total. This
number is hardly plausible, but demonstrates the superiority of
the foreign invader. In the conflict that followed the trireme was
the ship of the line in both the Greek and Persian navies.
The first two naval skirmishes, which took place at Artemisium, between the Greek and the much larger Persian fleets, were indecisive. The Greek fleet fell back to the island of Salamis after the heroic last stand of the Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae on 20 August 480 BC. The Greeks were severely outnumbered both on land and at sea, but Themistocles managed to keep the Greek fleet together. Against all odds they defeated the Persian navy at Salamis on 20 September. The victory secured Greek command of the sea and Xerxes was forced to retreat. In August 479 BC, the Persians were decisively defeated in the battle of Plataea. |
