Salamis
SAL-uh-miss
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesThe sea battle of 480, fought in the straits between Attica and the island of Salamis, weeks after Thermopylae.
Herodotus has Themistocles manoeuvring the Greek fleet into a narrow channel where Persian numbers counted against them, by sending a false message to Xerxes that the Greeks were about to scatter.
Xerxes watched it from a throne set on the shore. Herodotus says he had the scribes note down which of his captains fought well, which is the detail that makes the scene.
Sources
- Hdt. 8.40-96
- Hdt. 8.75
- Hdt. 8.90
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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