Athens Burning
Garland, Robert (Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the Classics, Colgate University)
Between June 480 and August 479 BC, tens of thousands of Athenians evacuated, following King Xerxes' victory at the Battle of Thermopylae. Abandoning their homes and ancestral tombs in the wake of the invading Persian army, they sought refuge abroad. Women and children were sent to one safe haven, the elderly to another, while all men of military age were conscripted into the fleet. During this difficult year of exile, the city of Athens was s...