The Persian fleet, after suffering heavily from a destructive storm on the Magnesian coast, reached Aphetæ, opposite Artemisium, at the mouth of the Pagasæan gulf. Notwithstanding its losses, it still vastly outnumbered the armament of the Greeks, and feared nothing but the escape of the latter. But, in the series of conflicts which ensued, the Greeks were generally victorious and proved their superior naval genius. They could not, however, afford the heavy losses which they sustained, and, upon hearing of the disaster at Thermopylæ and the Persian possession of the all-important pass, they deemed it necessary to retreat. _W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapter 8, section 4 (volume 2)._ GREECE: B. C. 480. The Persian Wars: Salamis. Leonidas and his Spartan band having perished vainly at Thermopylæ, in their heroic attempt to hold the pass against the host of Xerxes, and the Greek ships at Artemisium having vainly beaten their overwhelming enemies, the whole of Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth lay completely at the mercy of the invader. The Thebans and other false-hearted Greeks joined his ranks, and saved their own cities by helping to destroy their neighbors. The Platæans, the Thespians and the Athenians abandoned their homes in haste, conducted their families, and such property as they might snatch away, to the nearer islands and to places of refuge in Peloponnesus. The Greeks of Peloponnesus rallied in force to the isthmus and began there the building of a defensive wall. Their fleet, retiring from Artemisium, was drawn together, with some re-enforcements, behind the island of Salamis, which stretches across the entrance to the bay of Eleusis, off the inner coast of Attica, near Athens. {1574} Meantime the Persians had advanced through Attica, entered the deserted city of Athens, taken the Acropolis, which a small body of desperate patriots resolved to hold, had slain its defenders and burned its temples. Their fleet had also been assembled in the bay of Phalerum, which was the more easterly of the three harbors of Athens. At Salamis the Greeks were in dispute. The Corinthians and the Peloponnesians were bent upon falling back with the fleet to the isthmus; the Athenians, the Eginetans and the Megarians looked upon all as lost if the present combination of the whole naval power of Hellas in the narrow strait of Salamis was permitted to be broken up. At length Themistocles, the Athenian leader, a man of fertile brain and overbearing resolution, determined the question by sending a secret message to Xerxes that the Greek ships had prepared to escape from him. This brought down the Persian fleet upon them at once and left them no chance for retreat. Of the memorable fight which ensued (September 20 B. C. 480) the following is a part of the description given by Herodotus: