Historian breathes life into an ancient battle

In the hands of Cornell University historian Barry Strauss, the story of the battle is a military epic of the first order. It also explains the battle's role in determining the fate of Western civilization.

Strauss does not just detail the grand strategies and bold tactics as two civilizations clashed in the narrow waters of a mile-wide strait. What captures the reader's imagination is how vividly Strauss brings forward the events of 2,500 years ago, breathing life into the men -- and one warrior queen -- involved in them.

There are heroic figures, as would be expected. On the Greek side there is Themistocles, a master of tactics -- and of disinformation -- who, Strauss writes, "arranged the perfect battle." And on the Persian side, there is the overreaching emperor Xerxes and his warrior-queen ally, Artemesia.

Strauss is also a good storyteller, portraying the 170 anonymous rowers in each of the triremes, fighting machines about 130 feet long -- 660 on the Persian side and probably just short of 370 on the Greek side. There were perhaps 200,000 men involved in the battle. The crews sweated so much in such confined quarters that they were "the dead giveaway of the approach of a trireme fleet. The odor could be detected a mile or more away if the wind was blowing."

What brought the two fleets to Salamis was the advance of Xerxes's army out of Asia and across the Hellespont, the modern Dardanelles, in May. Then, in late August, the Persians broke through a valiant Spartan force at Thermopylae, opening the way to Athens, 90 miles to the southeast.

After sacking Athens, the Persian army was poised to move toward Corinth and Sparta, fellow members of the Hellenic League. And while, as Strauss writes, it would have been an "obvious move" for the Greek navy to join the defenders near Corinth, Themistocles saw a chance for a victory at Salamis.