They marched upon
Athens, threw the garrison from the rocks of the Acropolis and
burned the city. The people fled to the Island of Salamis. All
seemed lost. But on the 20th of September of the year 480
Themistocles forced the Persian fleet to give battle within the
narrow straits which separated the Island of Salamis from the
mainland and within a few hours he destroyed three quarters
of the Persian ships.
In this way the victory of Thermopylae came to naught.
Xerxes was forced to retire. The next year, so he decreed,
would bring a final decision. He took his troops to Thessaly
and there he waited for spring.
But this time the Spartans understood the seriousness of
the hour. They left the safe shelter of the wall which they had
built across the isthmus of Corinth and under the leadership
of Pausanias they marched against Mardonius the Persian
general. The united Greeks (some one hundred thousand men
from a dozen different cities) attacked the three hundred thou-
sand men of the enemy near Plataea. Once more the heavy
Greek infantry broke through the Persian barrage of arrows.
The Persians were defeated, as they had been at Marathon, and
this time they left for good. By a strange coincidence, the
same day that the Greek armies won their victory near Plataea,
the Athenian ships destroyed the enemy's fleet near Cape Mycale
in Asia Minor.
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