Who was Themistocles?

He was an Athenian statesman and general (c. 524 to 459 BC) who built up Athens' navy and won the decisive sea battle against Persia at Salamis in 480 BC.

What is Themistocles famous for?

For persuading Athens to build a great fleet and for engineering the Greek naval victory at Salamis, which broke the Persian invasion of 480 BC.

What happened at the Battle of Salamis?

In 480 BC Themistocles lured the much larger Persian fleet into the narrow straits of Salamis, where the Greek ships crushed it, a turning point of the Persian Wars.

How did Themistocles build the Athenian navy?

He convinced Athens to spend a windfall from its silver mines on warships rather than distribute it to citizens, creating the fleet that would win at Salamis.

Why was Themistocles exiled?

Athenian politics turned against him; he was ostracised and later, pursued by his enemies, fled to the Persian Empire, where he ended his life as a provincial governor.

Was Themistocles a great general?

More a strategist than a battlefield commander, his foresight in building the navy and his cunning at Salamis rank him among the most important figures of ancient Greece.

Themistocles: the man who saved Greece at sea

Themistocles was the Athenian who saw that Greece would be saved not on land but at sea. Against fierce opposition he persuaded Athens to build a great fleet¹, and when the Persians came he lured their vast navy into the narrows at Salamis and destroyed it, one of the most decisive battles in history. Yet the city he saved later turned on him.

The vision of sea power

When a rich new vein of silver was found in the mines at Laurion², most citizens wanted to share it out. Themistocles argued instead for spending it on warships.³ That fleet, built in the years before the Persian invasion, would prove the salvation of Greece. He understood before anyone that Athens' future lay on the water.

Stone relief fragment showing a row of oarsmen in a Greek warship — An Athenian trireme with its rowers, from the Lenormant relief found on the Acropolis of Athens. Reproduction published in 1913. Public domain

Salamis

In 480 BC the Persian king Xerxes swept into Greece, and Athens itself was abandoned and burned.³ Themistocles gathered the Greek fleet in the straits of Salamis and, by a mixture of persuasion and trickery, drew the huge Persian navy into the narrow water⁴ where its numbers counted for nothing. The Greeks shattered it, and the invasion's momentum was broken.

Coin of Themistocles as ruler of Magnesia. Public domain.

He saw that Greece would be saved at sea, then made it happen at Salamis.

Fall and exile

Victory did not save Themistocles from Athenian politics. Within a decade he was ostracised, driven from the city⁵, and finally, hunted by his enemies, he took refuge with the very empire he had defeated, ending his life as a Persian governor in Asia Minor⁶. It was a bitter end for the man who had saved the Greek world.

Round pottery fragment with Greek letters scratched in a spiral — An ostracon, a pottery sherd used as a ballot in an ostracism vote, inscribed with the name of Themistocles son of Neocles. Museum of the Ancient Agora, Athens. Marsyas, CC BY 4.0

The measure of the man

Themistocles was not a battlefield general in the mould of Alexander; his genius was strategic foresight, the will to build a navy and the cunning to use it. Without him the Persian Wars might have ended very differently, and with them the whole story of Greece.

Aerial view of the Salamis strait with coloured ship symbols for the Greek and Persian fleets — The Greek and Persian fleets in the straits of Salamis in 480 BC, after a US Military Academy map, drawn over an aerial photograph of the strait. Public domain

See his great victory at Salamis, or meet the other great commanders of ancient Greece.

Sources and notes

Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.

Robert J. Lenardon, The Saga of Themistocles (Thames and Hudson, 1978). ↩
Livius.org (Jona Lendering), “Themistocles” ↩
Herodotus, Histories, Book 7, 143 to 144 (the 'wooden wall' oracle; the Laurion silver spent on 200 ships instead of being shared out); Book 8, 40 to 64 (Athens evacuated, the Acropolis taken and burned) and 75 to 96 (Sicinnus' message and the battle of Salamis). ↩ a b
Barry Strauss, The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece and Western Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 2004). ↩
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Themistocles” ↩
Plutarch, Life of Themistocles (Parallel Lives), Chapter 4: the Laurion silver revenue turned to building triremes; chapters 12 to 15: Salamis; chapters 22 to 31: ostracism, flight to Persia, the grant of Magnesia, Lampsacus and Myus, and his death at Magnesia. Loeb translation by B. Perrin online at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Themistocles*.html. ↩
World History Encyclopedia, “Themistocles, Encyclopedia of World History”
Wikipedia, “Themistocles, Wikipedia”