History of Athens returned under Darius's son Xerxes. When a small Greek force holding the pass of Thermopylae was defeated, the Persians proceeded to capture an evacuated Athens. The city of Athens got captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year after Thermopylae. Subsequently, the Athenians (led by Themistocles), with their allies, engaged the much larger Persian navy at sea in the Battle of Salamis. Xerxes built a throne on the coast in order to watch the Greek navy being defeated, but instead, the Persians were routed. This established a great turning point in the war. In 479 BC, the Athenians
Thermopylae Thermopylae Thermopylae (; Ancient Greek and Katharevousa: ("Thermopylai") , Demotic Greek (Greek): , ("Thermopyles") ; "hot gates") is a place in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity. It derives its name from its hot sulphur springs. The Hot Gates is "the place of hot springs" and in Greek mythology it is the cavernous entrances to Hades". Thermopylae is world-famous for the battle that took place there between the Greek forces (notably the Spartans) and the invading Persian forces, commemorated by Simonides in the famous epitaph, "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, That here obedient to their