Η ΕΝ ΤΗΙ ΣΑΛΑΜΙΝΙ ΜΑΧΗ α

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The Story Continues

After telling about the "Hot Gates" and how Xerxes won that first leg of the war, the old sailor comes to the more gratifying story of how the battle by sea at Salamis turned out.

While the main hero ἐν ταῖς Θερμοπύλαις was Leonidas, it is now the turn of Athens to be proud of one of its citizens,Themistokles. Who knows what would have happened to Greece and the Greeks, all the Greeks, not just the Athenians, if it hadn't been for his powers of persuasion.

Because Themistokles, like Odysseus, used not only eloquence but also guile to force the issue, to get both the Greeks and the Persians to do as he wanted.

What was his plan? Why was he convinced that it was a perfectly sound one?
Did Xerxes fall into his trap? (What trap?)


New will be some strange, very short indeed aorist forms, with funny endings.

Present Aorist
 βαίνω    I go   ἔβην    I went
 γιγνώσκω    I know  ἔγνων    I knew, found out  
       and a very strange verb indeed
       a  μι verb instead of the usual  ω verbs
 ἵστημι    I stand, I stop    ἔστην    I stopped (myself, not anyone else)