Press ESC to skip cutscene
With their city now completely exposed to the Persian invaders,
the desperate Athenians turned to the god Apollo for advice.
At Delphi, Apollo’s priestess — always a wise, graceful woman —
would give voice to the god’s prophecies in cryptic riddles.
On this occasion, her advice to the Athenians was unusually clear, and utterly terrifying:
flee, she told them — flee to the ends of the earth!
The Athenians begged for a second audience.
Apollo, apparently forgiving this impertinence, now offered one ray of hope:
whatever else may occur, intoned his priestess, the wooden wall would remain intact.
This was very encouraging…
until the Athenians realized that they had no idea what the "wooden wall" was supposed to be.
Some argued that it meant the palisade around the acropolis,
and wanted to make their stand there — but Themistocles persuaded the Athenians otherwise.
The wooden wall, he said, meant the fleet.
And so the people of Athens extinguished their hearths,
left behind the tombs of their ancestors,
and trudged down to the harbor at Piraeus, there to board the fleet with all they could carry.
After ferrying the women and children across the Saronic Gulf,
the fleet moored in the bay of Salamis with the rest of the Greek allies.
There, they watched with anguish
as the Persians marched into Athens and torched their undefended homes.
Like bulls who reach the sacrificial altar and spook at the baying crowd below,
the allies began to panic. Many wished to flee.
But there was to be no escape:
the Persians blockaded both exits from the straits of Salamis,
trapping the Greek fleet.
There are some who say
that it was the scheming Themistocles himself who tipped off the Great King,
forcing his allies to stand alongside him.
I know not whether this is true —
but I do know that Themistocles would do anything for his people.
Now, trapped in the straits of Salamis, the Greeks had only two options: victory or death.