Who were the Persians defeated by in the sea battle at Salamis in 480BC?
The Persians play, "Glaucus", was either a mythical Corinthian king who was devoured by his horses because he angered the goddess Aphrodite (see Glaucus (son of Sisyphus)) or else a Boeotian farmer who ate a magical herb that transformed him into a sea deity with the gift of prophecy (see Glaucus). In "The Persians", Xerxes invites the gods' enmity for his hubristic expedition against Greece in 480/79 BCE; the focus of the drama is the defeat of Xerxes' navy at Salamis. Given Aeschylus' propensity for writing connected trilogies, the theme of divine retribution may connect the three. Aeschylus himself had fought the
Battle of Salamis have to fight at Salamis. The Allied navy was thus able to prepare properly for battle the forthcoming day, whilst the Persians spent the night fruitlessly at sea, searching for the alleged Greek evacuation. The next morning, the Persians rowed into the straits to attack the Greek fleet; it is not clear when, why or how this decision was made, but it is clear that they did take the battle to the Allies. Herodotus reports that there were 378 triremes in the Allied fleet, and then breaks the numbers down by city state (as indicated in the table). However, his