The battle went on to take a mythical status among the Greeks, but it was merely the beginning battle of a long war with several other major battles. In 486 BC Xerxes became king, and he struck first the Cyclades and then the Greek mainland after victory at Thermopylae in August 480 BC against a token Greek force. At the indecisive naval battle of Thermopylae (also in August 480 BC), the Greeks held off the superior numbers of the Persian fleet but were forced to retreat to the south and aid in the evacuation of Athens and then regroup at the ports of Salamis.2 Greece then, lay open to all who chose, so Persian forces rampaged through the Greek polis or city-states, sacking even the great city of Athens itself. Some 30 Greek polis, however, were getting for a fight at Salamis that they hoped would show Xerxes once and for all that Greece, or at least a large chunk of it, was far from being
The battle went on to take a mythical status among the Greeks, but it was merely the beginning battle of a long war with several other major battles. In 486 BC Xerxes became king, and he struck first the Cyclades and then the Greek mainland after victory at Thermopylae in August 480 BC against a token Greek force. At the indecisive naval battle of Thermopylae (also in August 480 BC), the Greeks held off the superior numbers of the Persian fleet but were forced to retreat to the south and aid in the evacuation of Athens and then regroup at the ports of Salamis.2 Greece then, lay open to all who chose, so Persian forces rampaged through the Greek polis or city-states, sacking even the great city of Athens itself. Some 30 Greek polis, however, were getting for a fight at Salamis that they hoped would show Xerxes once and for all that Greece, or at least a large chunk of it, was far from being