when Xerxes reached Athens he found it silent and deserted. A few poor
or desperate men alone refused to depart, and had posted themselves
behind a wooden fortification on the top of the Acropolis, the
fortress and sanctuary of Athens. The Persians fired the
fortifications, stormed the Acropolis, slaughtered its defenders, and
burned every holy place to the ground. Athens and its citadel were in
the hands of the barbarians; its inhabitants were scattered, its holy
places destroyed. One hope alone remained to the Athenians--the ships
which Themistocles had persuaded them to build.

23. The fleet was anchored in the strait of Salamis, and beside the
two hundred ships of Athens, it consisted of a large number from other
ports of Greece. Among the Greeks there were divided counsels; some
were for giving immediate battle, and some were for flying from the
thousand Persian ships now advancing upon them. Themistocles saw that
to retreat would be ruin, and he by stratagem kept every ship in its
place. He sent secret word to the Persians that the Greek fleet would
soon be in full retreat, and the Persian admiral sent two hundred
vessels to blockade the farther extremity of the strait, so that
flight was impossible.

[Illustration: BATTLE OF SALAMIS (Map)]

24. When everything was in readiness, Xerxes, from a throne built for
him on the shore so that he might be a spectator of the fight, gave
the signal to advance. At once all the long banks of oars in the
thousand ships flashed in the light and dipped in the water. But here,
as at Marathon, the way was narrow, and there was no chance for the
display of the full power of the Persian fleet. In a hand-to-hand
conflict they stood no chance with the Greeks, and Xerxes, with