Battle of Thermopylae evacuated Athens. The Greek fleet—seeking a decisive victory over the Persian armada—attacked and defeated the invaders at the Battle of Salamis in late 480 BC. Wary of being trapped in Europe, Xerxes withdrew with much of his army to Asia (losing most to starvation and disease), leaving Mardonius to attempt to complete the conquest of Greece. However, the following year saw a Greek army decisively defeat the Persians at the Battle of Plataea, thereby ending the Persian invasion. Both ancient and modern writers have used the Battle of Thermopylae as an example of the power of a patriotic army defending
Greece in the 5th century BC in Attica, attempting to take Athens, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon by a Greek army of 9000 Athenian hoplites and 1000 Plateans led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The Persian fleet continued to Athens but, seeing it garrisoned, decided not to attempt an assault. During the subsequent period of peace, in 483 BC, a silver-bearing seam had been discovered in the Laurion (a small mountain range close to Athens), and the hundreds of talents mined there had paid for the construction of 200 warships to fight Aegina's piracy. In 480 BC, Darius' successor Xerxes I sent a