Athens fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians. The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age
Leonidas at Thermopylae Leonidas at Thermopylae Leonidas at Thermopylae is an oil on canvas painting by French artist Jacques-Louis David. The work currently hangs in the Louvre in Paris, France. The massive painting has the dimensions of about thirteen feet by seventeen and a half feet and was completed in 1814. The convoluted piece took David almost fifteen years to complete, with him separating his work into two periods from 1799 to 1803 and 1813-1814. Leonidas at Thermopylae was purchased, along with "The Intervention of the Sabine Women", in November of 1819 for 100,000 francs by Louis XVIII, the king of France at