Before democracy, nobody would even think about a common person who did not grow up an aristocrat. Themistocles was one of Athens's greatest leader. He formed a strategy involving the trireme-a state of the art ancient ship It was very narrow and sort of used like a missile. 170 men were on this boat at one time, and there was over 200 of these in their navy. This ship had a unique structure that was very useful for fighting. One shot to the enemy's boat with this could take out another ship. However, they were very expensive. Athens would have never gotten them, but in 331 B.C. Athens found 100 talents of gold. The people wanted to use these riches to divide among themselves, but Themistocles wanted to buy ships with it.
Darius died in 486 B.C., and his son Xerxes took over. He was a Persian king. He wanted to get revenge on Athens once and for all. He got troops from every corner of his empire. Word got to Greece that this would be occurring. In 480 B.C., the Persian Army set out for Greece. Xerxes was confident of victory. Panic gripped the city of Athens. An oracle is somebody who can communicate with the gods and foresee the future, so they went to Delphi to easy their tension. People came from all over the world to see Delphi. The Athenians asked what they could do to protect themselves, but the oracle told them that their future was doomed; it couldn't have been more negative. The people were upset by this because they thought that even the gods had dissented them. Themistocles did not panic.
Themistocles order for the people to meet at Slamamis and evacuate Athens. When the Persians got to the abandoned Greece, the went to the Acropolis and burnt it down along with their temples. Themistocles had a plan to fight the Persians on sea rather than land. He knew that Athens wouldn't win if they fought on land. He sent somebody into the Persian camp to put Xerxes into his trap, and it worked. The Persian navy was 4X the amount of the Athenians. Once the Persians got to Salamis, they knew that they had been tricked, seeing the Athenians lined up ready to fight. The Persians were too far in to turn around once they got here, so the Athenians took it to them, and showed no mercy. The Persians lost 200 ships in this battle. Athens was victorious.
The Delian league had become Athen's empire. It was a city for a vast trading network. It was like the New York city of our time. The Athenians had access to a privileged life.
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