The Spartans claimed the command of land forces, and since the Greek ( hereafter referred to as " Allied ") fleet would be dominated by Athens, Themistocles tried to claim command of the naval forces.

Themistocles claimed that the Allied commanders were infighting, that the Peloponnesians were planning to evacuate that very night, and that to gain victory all the Persians needed to do was to block the straits.

The origins of this sport is claimed to be derived from the Athenians when Themistocles, marching his army against the Persians, chanced upon two cocks fighting and charged his army saying “ Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, for glory, for liberty or the safety of their children, but only because one will not give way to the other .” Inspired, his army defeated the Persians and after ordained by law, cockfighting was annually practiced as " an institution partly religious and partly political at Athens, and continued there for the purpose of improving the seeds of valour in the minds of the Athenian youth ".

From this point on, Themistocles appears to have been more-or-less in charge of the Allied effort at Artemisium.

Since it was his long-standing advocacy of Athenian naval power which enabled the Allied fleet to fight at all, and it was his stratagem that brought about the Battle of Salamis, it is probably not an exaggeration to say, as Plutarch does, that Themistocles " is thought to have been the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Hellas ".

Plutarch reports that Themistocles also proposed in secret to destroy the beached ships of the other Allied navies, in order to ensure complete naval dominance, but was overruled by Aristides and the council of Athens.

The Allied fleet now sailed from Artemisium to Salamis to assist with the final evacuation of Athens ; en route Themistocles left inscriptions addressed to the Ionian Greek crews of the Persian fleet on all springs of water that they might stop at, asking them to defect to the Allied cause.

If Xerxes could destroy the Allied navy, he would be in a strong position to force an Allied surrender ; conversely by avoiding destruction, or as Themistocles hoped, by destroying the Persian fleet, the Allies could prevent conquest from being completed.

The Athenian general Themistocles proposed that the Allied Greeks block the advance of the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae and simultaneously block the Persian navy at the Straits of Artemisium.

The Euboeans, not wanting to be abandoned to the Persians, bribed Themistocles to try to ensure that the Allied fleet remained.

However, the other naval powers, including Corinth and Aegina refused to give command to the Athenians, and Themistocles pragmatically backed down.

A force of 10, 000 hoplites was dispatched to the Vale of Tempe, through which they believed the Persian army would have to pass, under the command of the Spartan polemarch Euenetus and Themistocles.

Themistocles himself took command of the Athenian contingent of the fleet, and went to Artemisium.

It is probable that in early 479 BC, Themistocles was stripped of his command ; instead, Xanthippus was to command the Athenian fleet, and Aristides the land forces.

The fleet was effectively under the command of Themistocles, but nominally led by the Spartan nobleman Eurybiades, as had been agreed at the congress in 481 BC.

Although Themistocles had tried to claim leadership of the fleet, the other city states with navies objected, and so Sparta ( which had no naval tradition ) was given command of the fleet as a compromise.

Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary.

Others, Themistocles among them, said the oracle was clearly for fighting at sea, the metaphor intended to mean war ships.

Themistocles ( Greek: ; " Glory of the Law "; c. 524 – 459 BC ), was an Athenian politician and a general.

As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility.

Due to subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Allies lured the Persian fleet into the Straits of Salamis, and the decisive Greek victory there was the turning point in the invasion, which was ended the following year by the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea.

It was Thucydides's judgement that Themistocles was " a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius ; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled ".

Themistocles was born in Athens around 524 BC, the son of Neocles, who was, in the words of Plutarch " no very conspicuous man ".

Plutarch indicates that, on account of his mother's background, Themistocles was considered something of an outsider ; furthermore the family appear to have lived in an immigrant district of Athens, Cynosarges, outside the city walls.

Plutarch further reports that Themistocles was preoccupied, even as a child, with preparing for public life.

Themistocles had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother, she became priestess of Cybele ; Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island of Chios ; Sybaris to Nicomedes the Athenian.

Themistocles was to prove himself a master of the new system ; " he could infight, he could network, he could spin ... and crucially, he knew how to make himself visible.

In advancing naval power, Themistocles was probably advocating a course of action he thought essential for the long-term prospects of Athens.

Themistocles avoided mentioning Persia, deeming that it was too distant a threat for the Athenians to act on, and instead focused their attention on Aegina.

Aristides refused to countenance this ; conversely Themistocles was not pleased that only 100 ships would be built.

Themistocles sent a servant, Sicinnus, to Xerxes, with a message proclaiming that Themistocles was " on king's side and prefers that your affairs prevail, not the Hellenes ".

The Peloponnesians were in favour of evacuating, and it was at this point that Themistocles attempted his ruse with Xerxes.

Many Athenians prominent earlier in the century would have lost citizenship, had this law applied to them: Cleisthenes, the founder of democracy, had a non-Athenian mother, and the mothers of Cimon and Themistocles were not Greek at all, but Thracian.

Miltiades ordered the two tribes that were forming the center of the Greek formation, the Leontis tribe led by Themistocles and the Antiochis tribe led by Aristides, to be arranged in the depth of four ranks while the rest of the tribes at their flanks were in ranks of eight.

At the suggestion of Themistocles, all of the funerary sculptures were built into the city wall and two large city gates facing north-west were erected in the Kerameikos.

From the handwriting they appear to have been written by fourteen individuals and bear the name of Themistocles, ostracised before 471 BC and were evidently meant for distribution to voters.

In order to persuade the Spartans to defend Attica, Themistocles needed to show them that the Athenians were willing to do everything necessary for the success of the alliance.

As Holland has it: " What precise heights of oratory he attained, what stirring and memorable phrases he pronounced, we have no way of knowing ... only by the effect it had on the assembly can we gauge what surely must have been its electric and vivifying quality-for Themistocles ' audacious proposals, when put to the vote, were ratified.

Furthermore, the Spartans were obliged to repatriate Themistocles in order to free their own ambassadors.

It should be noted that both Diodorus and Plutarch considered that the charges were false, and made solely for the purposes of destroying Themistocles.

:" Timodemus of Aphidnae, who was one of Themistocles ' enemies but not a man of note, was crazed with envy and spoke bitterly to Themistocles of his visit to Lacedaemon, saying that the honors he had from the Lacedaemonians were paid him for Athens ' sake and not for his own.

Although heavily outnumbered, the Greek Allies were persuaded by the Athenian general Themistocles to bring the Persian fleet to battle again, in the hope that a victory would prevent naval operations against the Peloponessus.

Still earlier than these, in the times of the Medes and Persians, there were Solon, Themistocles, Miltiades, and Cimon, Myronides, and Pericles and certain others in Athens, and in Sicily Gelon, son of Deinomenes, and still others.

After the second Persian invasion of Greece, Themistocles fortified the three harbours of Piraeus and created the neosoikoi ( ship houses ); the Themistoclean Walls were completed in 471 BC, turning Piraeus into a great military and commercial harbour.

For their support of the Persians, the islanders were later punished by the Athenian war leader Themistocles, who exacted a heavy fine.

Among his best works were his drama Hannibal ( 1873 ), The Death of Themistocles, and other Poems ( 1881 ), his Byron in the " English Men of Letters " series ( 1880 ), his Robert Burns ( 1882 ) and Carlyle ( 1892 ).

It was quoted by Plutarch in a biography of Themistocles, as were the following two fragments, 728 and 729 ( see Life above for historical context ).

Other declamations, only known from the excerpts in Photius, were imaginary orations put into the mouth of famous persons -- Demosthenes advocating the recall of Aeschines from banishment, Hypereides supporting the policy of Demosthenes, Themistocles inveighing against the king of Persia, an orator unnamed attacking Epicurus for atheism before Julian at Constantinople.

Before the Battle of Salamis ( 480 BC ), Athenian women and children were sent to Troezen for safety on the instructions of the Athenian statesman Themistocles.