Themistocles, seeing that the Bay of Salamis looked somewhat like the Pass of Thermopylæ, had an idea. He made believe he was a traitor like the traitor at Thermopylæ and sent word to Xerxes that if the Persian fleet divided and one half stayed at one end of the strait and the other half closed off the other end of the strait, the Greeks would be penned in between and caught as in a trap. Xerxes thought this a good idea, so he gave orders to have his ships do as Themistocles had suggested. But Xerxes, sitting smiling on his throne, had the surprise of his life. The result was just the opposite of what he had expected. With the Persian fleet separated in two parts, the Greeks in between could fight both halves of the divided fleet at the same time, and the space was so narrow that the Persians’ ships got in the way of each other and rammed and sank their own boats. And so the Persian fleet was completely beaten, and the proud and boastful Xerxes, with most of his army and all the navy that was left, made a hasty retreat back to Persia the way they had come. And this was the last time the Persians ever tried to conquer little Greece. If Themistocles had not had his way and built such a strong fleet, what do you think would have become of Athens and Greece! 26 The Golden Age When we were talking about the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, I told you that later we should also hear of a Golden Age. Well, we have come to the Golden Age now. This doesn’t mean that people at this time used things made of gold, nor that they had a great deal of gold money. It means--well, let us see what sort of a time it was, and then you can tell what it means. After the wars with Persia, Athens seemed to have been cheered up by her victory to do wonderful things, and the next fifty years after the Persians were driven out of Greece--that is, 480 to 430 B. C.--were the most wonderful years in the history of Greece and perhaps the most wonderful years in the history of the world. Athens had been burned down by Xerxes. At the time it happened this seemed like a terrible misfortune. But it wasn’t. The people set to work and built a much finer and much more beautiful city than the old one had been. Now, the chief person in Athens at this time was a man named Pericles. He was not a king nor a ruler, but he was so very wise and such a wonderful speaker and such a popular leader that he was able to make the Athenians do as he thought best. He was like the popular captain of a football team, who is a fine player himself and can make fine players of all the others on his team. Athens was his team, and he trained it so well that any one of the team would have been able to fill any position no matter how important it was. Some men became great artists. Some men became great writers. Some men became great philosophers. Do you know what philosophers are? They are wise men who know a great deal and love knowledge.