Religious Events

The Battle of Salamis

Battle

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "The Battle of Salamis." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/religious-events/the-battle-of-salamis.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). The Battle of Salamis. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/religious-events/the-battle-of-salamis

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-the-battle-of-salamis,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {The Battle of Salamis},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/religious-events/the-battle-of-salamis},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The naval battle fought in the straits between the island of Salamis and the Attic coast in September 480 BCE, in which the combined Greek fleet, with Athens supplying the largest contingent under Themistocles's effective command, destroyed the numerically superior fleet of the Persian king Xerxes I. Coming weeks after the Persian sack of an evacuated Athens, the victory ended the immediate threat to the Greek mainland and is read in the Athenian tradition, following Herodotus, as the fulfillment of Delphi's oracular promise that a wooden wall, rightly understood as the fleet, would not fall, and that holy Salamis, named divine rather than accursed in the oracle's own wording, would bring destruction on the invaders rather than on Athens. Xerxes, who watched the battle from a throne set up on the mainland, withdrew the greater part of his army from Greece within the year, leaving a reduced force under Mardonius that was defeated the following year at Plataea.

Facts

The Event

When It Happened

September 480 BCE. 1

Period

480 BCE 1

Where It Happened

The straits between the island of Salamis and the Attic coast, within sight of an already evacuated Athens. 1

Principal Parties

The allied Greek fleet, its largest single contingent supplied by Athens and led in the field by Themistocles under the nominal Spartan command of Eurybiades, against the fleet of the Persian king Xerxes I. 1

Attestation

Historicity

Well attested by multiple independent near contemporary sources, including Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians, staged in Athens only eight years after the battle and drawing partly on the playwright's own service in the war, as well as Herodotus's later narrative history. 1

This atlas records no death toll for the battle. Salamis was fought to repel a Persian imperial invasion, not over religious difference; Delphi's oracle shaped Athenian strategy, but consulting Delphi before a campaign was the ordinary practice of nearly every Greek state at war in this period, not a mark that this particular war was fought over religion.

Scholarship

Where It Is Recorded

Herodotus, Histories, Book 8; Aeschylus, The Persians. 1

Consequences

What It Settled

A decisive Greek naval victory. The Persian fleet suffered heavy losses, and Xerxes withdrew the greater part of his army from Greece within the year, leaving Mardonius's smaller force to be defeated the following year at Plataea. 1

Lasting Consequence

Ended the immediate Persian threat to the Greek mainland and confirmed Athens's naval strength as the basis of its subsequent leadership of the Delian League. 1

Origins

Defining Moment

Themistocles's public argument, made first before the Athenian assembly and again before the allied commanders at Salamis itself, that Delphi's wooden wall oracle meant the fleet, is what committed the Greek forces to fight in the straits rather than withdraw to the Isthmus of Corinth. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Athens

This source names Athens directly: "which the combined Greek fleet, with Athens supplying the largest contingent under Themistocles's effective command, destroyed the numerically superior fleet of the Persian king Xerxes I."

Source HistoriesHerodotus

Delphi

Source HistoriesHerodotus

Greece

This source names Greece directly: "the greater part of his army from Greece within the year, leaving a reduced force under Mardonius that was defeated the following year at Plataea."

Source HistoriesHerodotus

Persians

This source names Persians directly: "The naval battle fought in the straits between the island of Salamis and the Attic coast in September 480 BCE, in which the combined Greek fleet, with Athens supplying the largest contingent under..."

Source HistoriesHerodotus

The Delphic Wooden Wall Oracle to Athens Before Salamis

The battle the tradition reads as the oracle's promise fulfilled, holy Salamis named in the oracle's own text.

Source HistoriesHerodotus

Themistocles

Source HistoriesHerodotus