in August. Themistocles persuades the other Greek naval commanders to attack the Persian fleet which is regrouping after the storm in the Gulf of Pagasae.

On the same day Xerxes orders his crack troops forward for the first attack on the Spartan position. They are repulsed with heavy losses.

In a further great storm part of the Persian fleet, which had been sent to round Euboea, is wrecked off the southern coast of the island.

Second day of the Battle of Thermopylae. The Persians are again badly defeated. The Greek fleet scores another small victory.

Third day of the Battle of Thermopylae. During the previous night Xerxes’ imperial guard, the Immortals, have outflanked Leonidas by following the route over the mountains behind the pass. In the morning Xerxes orders another frontal attack on the Spartan position. Meanwhile the Immortals have come down the mountain and take the Spartans from the rear. Leonidas and a chosen handful die to a man. On the same afternoon the Greek fleet scores an important victory over the Persians at Artemisium. (The day that Thermopylae was overrun was possibly 20 August - the day of the Spartan festival, the Carneia, which had been the cause of the main body of their army being withheld.)

The same night, on hearing the news, the Greek fleet withdraws from Artemisium, southward down the Euboea Channel.

23 August (?) Xerxes’ army advances into southern Greece. By the end of the month the main body of the army is into Attica itself.

hate August. Failure of the Persian-inspired Carthaginian attack on Sicily.

First week of September. The fall of the Acropolis of Athens.

c. 20 September. The Battle of Salamis. A few days after this crushing defeat Xerxes and the main body of the army begin their withdrawal from Greece.

480-479 Winter. A picked body of the Persian army under General Mardonius remains behind in Thessaly to prepare for an offensive in the spring.

479 hate spring. Mardonius and his army march south. Attica is once again overrun and Athens reoccupied. The Athenians once more withdraw to Salamis.

Early summer. The Spartans and their allies march north to join up with the Athenians. Mardonius relinquishes Athens and Attica. He withdraws to Thebes and his Greek allies in that area. The Persians encamp on the north bank of the River Asopus, covering the roads leading to Thebes itself.

479 Plataea. The final battle. The Persian invasion is over.


1 - THE GREAT KING

The whole of the East was on the move. So indeed it must have seemed to some peasant, looking up bewildered from his patch of land, as the army surged past like a river in spate. Day after day, as if driven by the hunger that sometimes forces great masses of the human race to migrate in search of new pastures, thousands upon thousands of men had been passing through the lowlands of Asia Minor. They were men of many races: Persians, Medes, and Bactrians, Arabs on camels, mountain men from Caucasus, Libyans driving chariots, and horsemen from central Iran.