# The Persian Wars 1.33-36

Greek and Roman Historians, The Persian Wars, Lines 1.33-1.36. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/greek-and-roman-historians/the-persian-wars/1.33

8.4.1. Greek Courage at Thermopylae
The Spartans showed their courage when three hundred of their men, along with a few other allied Greek contingents, held off Xerxes' huge army for several days at the narrow pass called Thermopylae ("Warm Gates") in central Greece. The characteristic Spartan refusal to be intimidated was summed up in the reputed comment of a Spartan hoplite. A companion remarked that the Persian archers were so numerous that their arrows darkened the sky in battle. "That's good news," said the Spartan, "we will get to fight in the shade." The pass was so narrow that the Persians could not employ their superior numbers to overwhelm the Greek defenders, who were better warriors one-on-one. Only when a local Greek, hoping for a reward from the Persian king, showed the Persian troops a secret route around the pass were they able to massacre its Greek defenders by attacking them from the front and the rear simultaneously.
8.4.2. The Naval Battle of Salamis
The Athenians soon after proved their mettle. Rather than surrender when Xerxes arrived in Attica with his army, they abandoned their city for him to sack. The Athenian commander Themistocles (c. 528-462 B.C.) then maneuvered the other Greeks into facing the larger Persian navy in a sea battle in the narrow channel between the island of Salamis and the west coast of Attica. Athens was able to supply the largest contingent to the Greek navy at Salamis because the assembly had been financing the construction of warships ever since a rich strike of silver had been made in Attica in 483 B.C. The proceeds from the silver mines went to the state andat the urging of Themistocles, the assembly had voted to use the financial windfall to build a navy for defense, rather than to distribute the money among individual citizens. As at Thermopylae, the Greeks in the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. used topography to their advantage. The narrowness of the channel prevented the Persians from using all their ships at once and minimized the advantage of their ships' greater maneuverability. In the close quarters of the Salamis channel, the heavier Greek ships could employ their underwater rams to sink the less sturdy Persian craft. When Xerxes observed that the most energetic of his naval commanders appeared to be the one woman among themArtemisia of Caria (the southwest corner of Turkey), he reportedly remarked, "My men have become women, and my women, men."

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Greek and Roman Historians, The Persian Wars. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
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