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
Battle of Thermopylae (279 BC) Aetolians all joined the defence - the old and women joining the fight. Realising that the Gallic sword was dangerous only at close quarters, the Aetolians resorted to skirmishing tactics. The Gauls destroyed Kallion, on the borders between Eurytania and Aetolia, committing horrible atrocities, but the resistance of the entire Aetolian population at the site Kokkalia, where also the elderly and the women and children fought, dealt a decisive blow to the Galatian threat. According to Pausanias, only half the number who had set out for Aetolia returned. Eventually Brennus found a way around the pass at Thermopylae but the