men and over 500 ships for them to travel in with plans to get revenge for his father Darius I. His
main goal was to make Greece a province of Persia which caused the city states to join forces to
fight off the Persians.
Each city state in Greece valued their independence but in the face of a
large threat like Persia’s invasion force they worked together to maintain their individuality. The
Persians started their assault by crossing the waters of the Hellespont and made their way into
northern Greece. They entered the mountain pass of Thermopylae and this is were they met
the famous 300 Spartans we know about today because of the movie, 300. After passing the
pass The Persians invaded Northern Greece who continued to march south as they destroyed
Athens.
The battle of Salamis, is the battle where the Greeks killed the greatest number of
Persians in the middle of the island of Salamis and the Athenian city of Piraeus. 800 Persian
galleys in the command of Xerxes fought against 370 Greek triremes in the Saronic Gulf. The
Greeks were in the command of Themistocles, and he trapped the Persians into the narrowest
part of the strait at Salamis so the Persian fleet had trouble steering their galleys. Then the
Greeks started attacking their enemy with all they had. They destroyed around 300 Persian
galleys, but the Greeks lost about 40 of their triremes. Xerxes had to rearrange his plan of
1
Ibid.
conquering Grece for a year, giving the Greeks time to join against the Persians. The Battle of
Salamis was the first great naval battle recorded in history.
