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Just as Themistocles predicted, the Persians were readying another invasion.
King Darius had died, but his son Xerxes was no less warlike —
indeed, he sought not just to punish Athens, but to conquer the whole of Greece.
This new Great King summoned all the forces of the vast Persian realm:
axe-wielding Sakae; Syrians with helmets of twisted bronze;
Ethiopians draped in leopard skins and armed with palm-wood bows.
At the Hellespont, they gathered in their thousands:
a host so enormous it drank rivers dry.
The Great King ordered a bridge of boats constructed between Europe and Asia,
the two continents yoked together like ill-matched oxen.
Xerxes would force the sea itself to bend to his will.
The Greeks called an urgent council.
Many cities had already submitted to Xerxes, offering the earth and water he demanded.
But other cities resolved to fight.
They pledged to unite their forces and cease their feuds with one another —
a most extraordinary thing for Greeks to do, you understand.
Together, the allied Greek cities devised a plan.
King Leonidas of Sparta would march to the mountain pass of Thermopylae,
there to await the Persian army.
Meanwhile, Themistocles and the Greek fleet would make their stand at the Strait of Artemisium.
With the narrow terrain on their side, and desperation coursing through their veins,
the Greeks hoped to halt the Persian flood — or dam it long enough to buy time…