16. Victory at Salamis
After overcoming a Spartan force at Thermopylae, the Persians marched on Athens, where many wanted to fight the advancing army. Themistocles convinced them it would be futile. Supported by a vague prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi, whom Themistocles had probably bribed, he argued that Athens should place her faith not on the city’s walls, but on her “wooden walls – her ships. Thus, when the Persians arrived, they found a nearly deserted Athens, whose citizens had been evacuated to the nearby island of Salamis. The Persians razed Athens’ walls, and put the city to the torch.
The war’s decisive battle was fought off Salamis in 480 BC. Athens’ Greek allies wavered and were about to take their ships and go home, when Themistocles forced a battle by tricking Persia’s King Xerxes into believing he had switched sides. He convinced Xerxes to attack the Greek ships in restricted waters, which had tricky tides and wind patterns with which the Greeks were familiar, but the Persians were not. The result was a decisive Greek victory.
