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
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