Themistocles and the Greeks' victory over Persia

Woohoo! Victory! The Greeks - The Hellenes as they call themselves – have defeated Persia near the island of Salamis. The people are saluting this man: Themistocles. Hold on, the Persians’ army was much bigger and had twice the number of ships, so how could the Hellenes win?

Three important reasons for their victory are these: The Hellenes live in independent city-states. The largest of these, Athens, is governed by a kind of democracy. The Athenians see themselves as co-ruling citizens. This means a lot to their self esteem and is something they don’t want to lose. The Persians on the other hand are ruled by a king, and don’t have that much say in their country.

They fight because their king tells them to, in a place they don’t care about. So the Persians don’t fight as hard as the Hellenes. Another reason for the Hellenes’ victory has to do with the army. Regardless of how rich you are, or what your work is, to be able to vote in Athens, you have to serve in the army. So Athenian foot soldiers are the likes of merchants, farmers, shoemakers.

The foot soldiers - the Hellenes call them hoplites - fight side by side in close rows behind each other. Every foot soldier protects the person next to him with half of his shield. They are driven forward as one wave of soldiers with no possibility of hesitation or turning back. A third reason for the Hellenes’ victory is these ships, with three teams of rowers positioned above each other. These triremes – or trieres - are easy to maneuver and can reach much higher speed than the Persians’ heavy warships.

In the bow of every trireme, there is a big battering ram. At high speed, the triremes ram into the enemy ships, which break apart. And then all the Greeks need to do is let the sea finish the job. There is above all one person who has made sure that the Hellenes have such a big fleet of triremes. This man: Themistocles.

Themistocles is Athenian and a politician. He has been pleading and pleading, and finally convinced Athens to build triremes. He has also convinced Sparta to do the same. Fortunate. Because it’s largely thanks to the triremes that the joint fleet was victorious over the Persians.

A few years later, Themistocles decides that Athens is to have new defensive walls. This irritates the Spartans. The Spartans have been the military decision makers in the war against the Persians. They do not want to see Athens develop and become militarily stronger than them. So, they spread rumours about Themistocles being a traitor who has collaborated with the Persians.

Meanwhile there are other men in Athens that don’t like Themistocles either. They think he has gathered too much power. Now, Themistocles is in trouble. The free men are gathering in the square. What are they doing?

They’re whispering names to a scribe who carves them on pieces of pottery called ostraka. When everyone has had their say, the pieces are sorted by name in different piles. The person named on most pieces is to be exiled - ostracised - and must leave the city within ten hours or he might be executed. This pile is the largest. It says Themistocles on the pieces.

The Athenians have voted to have Themistocles exiled. A bit unfair you might think. But ostracisation is a fairly common custom in Athens. To protect democracy and collective decision making in the city, no-one is allowed to become too powerful. Anyone might be voted off in this way - even the one who saved all of Hellas from invasion.

Themistocles is forced to escape from Athens. But because of the Spartan rumour of him being a traitor, he’s not welcomed into any other city-state. In the end, there is only one place left to escape to: Persia.