Episode Details

Themistocles persuaded Athens to build the fleet that destroyed the Persian navy at Salamis in 480 BCE, the most consequential naval battle in Western history. Within a decade, Athens ostracized him. He fled across the Mediterranean, and the man who saved Greece from Persia ended his life as a Persian governor.

This episode traces the rise and exile of the most brilliant and untrustworthy politician in Athenian history.

• How he convinced Athens to build 200 triremes before the Persian invasion
• The strategy at Salamis and why it worked
• His ostracism and flight across the Greek world
• His final years as a Persian vassal and the irony of his fate