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
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