Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis

Date

480 BCE

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Greece (central Greece and the Saronic Gulf)

Era

Classical Antiquity

Significance

In 480 BCE Xerxes I launched a vast second Persian invasion of Greece by land and sea.

At the narrow pass of Thermopylae a small allied Greek force under the Spartan king Leonidas held the Persians for three days; betrayed by a local who revealed a mountain path, Leonidas dismissed most of his troops and made a final stand with his 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and others, who were annihilated. The defeat opened central Greece, and the Persians captured and burned Athens, whose population had been evacuated. Later that year, however, the Athenian strategist Themistocles lured the larger Persian fleet into the cramped straits of Salamis, where Greek triremes destroyed much of it in a decisive naval victory. With his fleet crippled and supply lines threatened, Xerxes withdrew to Asia with much of his army, leaving his general Mardonius behind. The following year the Greek land victory at Plataea and the naval action at Mycale ended the invasion. Thermopylae became an enduring symbol of sacrificial resistance, while Salamis preserved Greek independence and cleared the way for the Athenian-led naval supremacy and cultural flowering of the fifth century.

Empires active in 480 BCE

• Achaemenid Empire
  550 BCE – 330 BCE
• Roman Republic
  509 BCE – 27 BCE
• Scythians
  800 BCE – 300 BCE
• Carthaginian Empire
  650 BCE – 146 BCE
• Kingdom of Kush
  1070 BCE – 350 CE
• Zhou Dynasty
  1046 BCE – 256 BCE

Related military & conflict events

• Death of Cyrus the Great in Battle Against the Massagetae
  c. 530 BCE
• Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the start of the Exile
  587/586 BCE
• Battle of Marathon
  September 490 BCE
• Alexander the Great invades the Persian Empire
  334 BCE
• Battle of Gaugamela destroys the Achaemenid Empire
  1 October 331 BCE
• Darius I's Scythian Campaign North of the Black Sea
  c. 513 BCE

Also relevant

• The Peloponnesian War
  431–404 BCE

Further reading

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World

If you read one book

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World

Paul Cartledge

Vivid popular account of the stand at Thermopylae and the Persian Wars.

Get it on Amazon →

Also worth reading

• The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece and Western Civilization — Barry StraussAmazon →

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