(dramatic music)
(clattering)
- [Themistocles] I am Themistocles,
General of the Athenians.
(yelling in foreign language)
My story begins 10 years ago.
King Darius the Great rules the Persian Empire.
Incredibly powerful, he puts down
the Greek rebels of Asia Minor,
(woman shrieking)
and threatens us next:
Athenians, free Greeks who went to their aid.
(whooshing)
Our resistance is organized by Militiades,
the Great Strateger and my role model.
Few cities help us.
Practically alone, Athens stands up to the Persian invader,
and leads the Greeks to a victory in the plain of Marathon,
a victory that brings glory and prestige to Athens.
(dramatic music)
(tense music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Narrator] For Darius, the defeat at Marathon
has left a bitter taste in his mouth,
even though it doesn't have any real consequences
on his empire or on his standing.
To everyone, he seems invincible.
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic music)
(dog barking)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Themistocles] Yes, I envied Militiades' glory.
He was the true hero to Marathon.
He found a way to defend our city from the Persian invader,
and lead us to victory,
but what good is honor to him now?
(dramatic music)
Athens may mourn Militiades and believe itself
free from all danger,
but I already know that is not the case.
I only have to look out to sea to realize that.
(dramatic music)
(faint yelling)
- [Narrator] The shores of Athens and the Aegean Sea
should be peaceful after the Persian retreat,
but in reality, it is the theater of clashes
between rival cities.
Pirates from the Greek island city of Aegina
regularly attack the modest trading fleet of Athens.
Hardened fighters, the Aeginians
are far superior seafarers than the Athenians.
- We must remember that at this time,
Greece isn't a unified country.
It's a series of separate city-states
which are often at odds with each other.
Old squabbles between cities, briefly put aside
for the Battle of Marathon flare up again.
So, there's no single authority on the seas.
- Athens, by tradition, has no great navy,
no great naval skill.
Instead, Athenian ships at harbors are attacked
by brilliant sailors from the neighboring island of Aegina.
Aegina, not Athens, rules the waves of the Aegean Sea.
Very few Athenians can imagine that their city
will soon be targeted by a far greater navy
than little Aegina could ever afford.
The navy of the vast Persian Empire.
But there is one man who does see the danger.
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic tense music)
- [Narrator] Darius the Great
dies after 36 years on the throne
without seeing through his punitive campaign
against Greece, which has been delayed
due to troubles in Egypt.
(tense music)
His son, designated by Darius while he was alive,
inherits a great civilization with 1,000 year old history.
(speaking foreign language)
(crowd cheering)
(dramatic music)
To begin with, Xerxes must defeat the Egyptians
and make an example of them.
Egypt is a major stake for the empire,
as much for its wealth as for its
strategic geographical location.
This first military campaign is a chance
for Xerxes to show his mettle and prove himself
worthy of the title King of Kings.
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic music)
- [Themistocles] I'm seeking to perfect the rostrum,
the fearsome ram of our triremes.
By covering it in bronze plating,
I will make it more effective during naval warfare.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- Suddenly, the discovery of a silver seam
at the mines of Laurium on the outskirts of Athens
brings new wealth to the city.
The seam is exceptionally rich, and the profits,
as is the custom, are shared out among the citizens,
and the Athenians are delighted
with this unexpected prosperity.
- Meanwhile, Xerxes is leading his campaign
in Egypt with determination.
Once the revolt is crushed, he plans to impose
even harder servitude than during the reign of Darius.
The stakes are high.
If he can pacify Egypt, he will earn his spurs
as a warrior king and merit his place
in the continuity of the dynasty.
(dramatic tense music)
(speaking foreign language)
Xerxes wins fame where his father failed.
The new king is capable of military feats
and worthy of carrying out the mission
to expand the empire given to every king
of kings by their god, Ahura Mazda.
(speaking foreign language)
Mardonius tells Xerxes, "You have punished
"the insolence of the Egyptians.
"Do not let the insults of the Athenians go unpunished.
"If you march with all your forces
"on Athens, you will earn such renown,
"that do one will dare to fight."
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic music)
A year later, back in Persepolis,
Xerxes begins working on a plan for invasion
from Asia Minor and into Europe to seize
Athens and other Greek cities.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
Mardonius aims to subjugate the Greek cities
of Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly
before attaining Athens in the heart of Attica
and finishing by the Peloponnese.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Themistocles] In the port of Piraeus in Athens,
we count the wounded to lament the loss
of entire loads of goods.
(speaking foreign language)
On the sea, without a maritime port,
we're in no shape to defend ourselves.
Here, tempers rise at the very name Aeginians.
Repeated trashers are driving
my fellow citizens to detest their great neighbors,
to forget the Persians and focus their hate
on those that torment us daily.
I cannot blame them.
But I fear that wars between cities
are weakening all Greeks in face of a Persian invasion.
- Meanwhile, Xerxes has begun his preparations
which are on an unprecedented scale.
He orders the mobilization of countless troops,
plans his route and orders gigantic works,
like excavating a shipping channel across Mount Athos.
He puts provisions in place in Thrace and Macedonia,
orders the building of a bridge so his troops
can cross the Hellespont, the Dardanelles Straight.
Greek writers portray Xerxes as a mad megalomaniac
swollen with pride and in contempt
of the limits imposed on men by the gods.
In reality, his aim is clear:
to punish Athens and subjugate all Greece.
His plan is detailed, coherent
and far from being extravagant.
(melancholy music)
- [Narrator] At the Ecclesia, it's a special day.
Today, the profits from the silver mines
at Laurium are being shared out.
For many, this unexpected income is a chance
to improve daily life and plan for the future.
(speaking foreign language)
(crowd applauding)
(crowd booing)
(clapping)
- [Themistocles] The art of oratories,
a source of all inference.
I used the Aeginians as a pretext to finally build
the maritime force we severely lack.
(dramatic music) (crowd applauding)
Of course, I am really concerned with the Persian fret,
but I failed to mention that.
(dramatic music)
Amid the hub bub of the ship building,
I'm delighted to be building this war fleet.
Each trireme will hold 200 men
and I'm planning to build 100 triremes a year.
The poorest citizens already thanked me
for this shipyard, which offers them unhopeful work.
(splashing)
(dramatic music)
This fleet will be our biggest asset
and for three reasons:
it will defend our coasts from attacks by sea,
it will protect our merchant ship convoys
and our communications, but primarily,
it will be our offensive against our enemies.
(dramatic music)
Athens will rule the waves.
- In Greece, it's only Athens which is launching
a huge program of building warships.
- Meanwhile, Xerxes assembles a huge land army in Asia Minor
whose troops come from the 50 people of the empire.
He also put together an impressive fleet,
manned by Egyptians, Phoenicians and also
Greeks from Asia Minor.
As for the Mount Athos channel,
work is progressing despite difficulties.
To avoid the caving in of the walls,
the Phoenicians have the idea of excavating
in a 'V', despite doubling the size of the task.
Thousands of laborers work in shifts for three years.
When finished, the channel measures two kilometers long
by 30 meters wide and 50 meters deep.
- Greeks understand that engineering,
recruitment of troops on this scale means only one thing.
Xerxes is utterly determined and Greece is his target.
(tense music)
- [Themistocles] I have done everything to ensure
that all Greeks are aware of the considerable
preparations of Xerxes on land and sea.
For the first time, 31 Greek cities must unite
to debate on how to act.
The most important, Sparta, Corinth
and Aegina are all present.
I am ready to speak on behalf of Athens.
(speaking foreign language)
Yes, I have yielded command to the Spartans,
but who was it who convinced the cities
to unite against the Persian invader?
Isn't that more important?
Rather than linger on dark thoughts,
I prefer to assess the Persian forces.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Narrator] After four long years of work,
Xerxes' massive invasion plan is coming to fruition.
The contingents must cross the Hellespont,
and join up with the fleet.
(dramatic music)
Xerxes ordered the building of this pontoon bridge
from Asia to Europe.
Mardonius has linked the two shores of the Dardanelles
by joining together 674 triremes.
This bridge covers the full width of the straight,
one and a half kilometers.
The ships, anchored and bound with linen rope and bark,
are covered with planks, then with leveled earth.
Wooden barriers prevent the animals
from being scared by the waves.
Herodotus assesses Xerxes' army at five million men
and notes that the crossing took seven days
and seven nights.
This is surely an exaggeration.
The Persian army must have numbered
one to two million men.
The Persians advance, supported by the fleet
which follows the coastline.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic music)
Indeed, Xerxes will provoke unprecedented fear.
Although his army is a logistical nightmare
to move around, it nonetheless captured
Thrace and Macedonia with ease.
Xerxes is now ready to descend on central Greece
without cause for concern.
- The feedback from spies throws the Greeks into confusion.
- For Sparta and her neighbors in the south,
the preferred defensive line is the Isthmus of Corinth,
the narrow gateway to southern Greece,
but to protect Athens and central Greece,
two advance positions are to be guarded,
the narrow Pass of Thermopylae,
and the sea right next to it, a narrow channel
between Thermopylae and Cape Artemisium.
In the late summer of 480, Leonidas,
one of Sparta's two kings, heads there
with 300 elite Spartan citizens and about
7,000 hoplites from other states.
- Eurybiades, the Spartan general, leaves for Artemisium
with Themistocles and the entire Greek fleet.
- What happens at Thermopylae soon becomes legendary.
Persians cross the mountains to encircle Leonidas' position.
He sends away his allies to save them
and himself dies fighting with his 300 Spartans.
The Spartans, always brilliant at propaganda,
turned this into a moral victory.
They have proved they're the bravest of warriors
who will always lead their allies from the front.
Sparta's leadership of the Greeks
wasn't undermined by this defeat, it was cemented.
The fleet fights well, but withdraws
after the fall of Thermopylae.
- [Dominique] Xerxes invades Phocis, Boeotia,
and beseiges the cities he crosses,
whose only choice is to surrender or be destroyed.
The Persians are at the gates of Attica.
The Athenians need to turn to the gods.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Themistocles] Alarmed by our future,
we questioned the gods through the Oracle of Apollo,
as is the custom, but how should we greet
the divine announcement of great misfortune to come?
With deciduity?
(speaking foreign language)
Frustrated, I convince my fellow citizens
to pan an extra tax to obtain another
consultation with the Oracle.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Oracle] Once the enemy has seized all
that encloses the country, Jupiter the Omniscient
will grant Athena a wall of wood,
which will be neither taken nor destroyed.
It will be your salvation,
that of you and your children.
(speaking foreign language)
Do not quietly await the large army
which will come to attack you by land.
Rather, take flight.
A day will come when you will stand up to it,
for you, oh divine Salamis.
- Themistocles interprets the prediction in his own way,
and explains it to the Athenians.
The Oracle evoked their enemy's downfall, not their own.
If they must evacuate the city, and protect their army,
it's so as to fight better, later,
on the sea at Salamis, an island close to Athens.
If the outcome were disaster, the Oracle
would have said ill-fated Salamis, and not divine Salamis.
- [Themistocles] My family, like those of all Athenians,
packs our belongings.
My loved ones' hearts are heavy with the idea
of leaving our ancestral land.
For the first time in our history,
we Athenians must evacuate our city.
(somber music)
I bid farewell to that which is most precious.
My father may have disowned me in the past,
but that will not stop me honoring his grave.
(somber music)
Would he understand that Athens without wars
will fall to the massed Persian ranks marching on her?
We have no other choice, flee or perish.
I organize the evacuation of the city and use our fleet.
It's aboard our triremes that the Athenians
will go into exile and remain safe.
May no one scorn our fleet.
If we flee, it is to better attack later.
(dramatic music)
(dog barking)
The height of the flames disguises nothing
of the violence ordered by Xerxes.
The Persians set about destroying Athens
surely furious at finding the city deserted.
I refuse to be shaken by it.
Our temples may have been disfigured,
but we're all safe and free.
May the Persians fear the effects of our wrath
when the time comes for our revenge.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Narrator] Xerxes is prepared to pursue the Greeks
to their refuge, the island of Salamis.
No subject kings dare oppose him.
Everyone docilely agrees to a naval battle,
all except one person, a woman.
(speaking foreign language)
Artemisia I, Queen of Halicarnassus, disagrees.
She thinks it wrong to underestimate the Greeks at sea,
and that's it's preferable to avoid naval conflict.
She advises Xerxes to advance on land
and capture the Peloponnese.
(speaking foreign language)
- Xerxes is unconvinced.
He wants to pursue the Athenians and their allies
and face them in a naval battle.
It's not the usual plan.
Until now, the campaign has advanced simply.
You besiege a city, it surrenders or is razed,
then you go on to the next one.
As Athens is in ruins, the king should sweep down
on the Isthmus of Corinth to attack
the cities of the Peloponnese
and complete his conquest of Greece.
But the Athenians are not subjugated
and the king doesn't want to leave
an enemy fleet behind him.
So, the Persians sail their fleet to Salamis,
but the Greeks are divided about what action to take.
(waves crashing)
- [Themistocles] The Persians have defied us
all day off the coast of Salamis.
It was easy to convince the Greeks
to refuse this unfavorable battle,
but now, we must debate which battle to take to them.
(speaking foreign language)
(clapping)
- The tension mounts among the Greeks,
due to the Persian 1,200 ship fleet.
The alliance of the cities is threatened
by the temptation of every man for himself.
The Peloponnesians want to retreat to their lands.
- In Themistocles' mind, if they don't fight at sea,
everyone will return to their cities.
The army will disperse, the fleet will break up,
and all Greece will be lost.
(speaking foreign language)
The Greek fleet has 378 triremes,
about 200 of which are Athenian,
and Salamis Bay has the advantage of being
a real bottleneck where numbers won't matter.
So, the chances of success are real,
if he can convince Eurybiades and the other generals.
(waves crashing)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Themistocles] Eurybiades must accept
if the Athenian fleet leaves,
it will certainly condemn the rest
of the Greek fleet to defeat.
(speaking foreign language)
(somber music)
- [Narrator] Faced with the outsized Persian forces,
it's not rare for kings or generals
to go over to the enemy, hoping for leniency.
Xerxes, like his predecessors, knows how to be
generous with those who serve him well.
(speaking foreign language)
Could Themistocles, disheartened by his allies'
lack of commitment to the Greek cause, betray his own?
A surprising turn of events.
- [Patrice] Themistocles knows he must provoke
a quick naval battle to save Greece.
Eurybiades and the other generals agree to follow him,
but they could change their minds.
A battle out at sea is risky, due to the numbers.
That's why Themistocles must draw the enemy
to where he wants them, Salamis Bay.
- [Narrator] Xerxes was already intent on engaging
in a naval battle to finish off the Greeks.
Themistocles' betrayal is too good a chance to turn down.
Xerxes speeds up his plan.
He wants to block, as soon as possible,
the three exits from Salamis Bay
so the Greeks are unable to escape.
(dramatic music)
That night, the sea blockade is deployed,
with 200 ships to the northwest of the Megara Pass
and to the southeast on either side
of the island of Psyttaleia.
His plans to encircle the straight
by surrounding the islands, then to massively attack
the Greek fleet by maneuvering on the flanks
and destroy it.
- Themistocles' strategy at Salamis is to prevent
the Persian fleet doing to the Greek ships
what Xerxes' army has done to Leonidas at Thermopylae,
using their superior numbers to surround the Greeks.
So, Greek ships are to block a narrow channel
between the Isle of Salamis and the Athenian mainland.
Persian ships seemed to have been lighter
and more maneuverable than the Greek ships,
but in the Channel of Salamis,
they'll be too cramped to maneuver.
- Persian numerical superiority will become meaningless.
There will now be a ratio of one to one.
(dramatic music)
- [Themistocles] At the new day's dawning,
I can only be proud of the long road traveled.
10 years of effort to establish a naval policy
and build this fleet.
It's now her chance to shine today,
in a moment of truth that will decide
the subjugation of the freedom of the Greeks.
(dramatic music)
The Persians are where I want them to be,
but what will be the outcome of battle?
That I cannot answer.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Xerxes is based on the mainland,
facing Salamis.
From here, he can keep track of his fleet
and the deployments for battle.
Confident in his fleet, he can't wait for battle to begin.
(dramatic music)
(speaking foreign language)
- [Themistocles] Enemy against enemy,
the two fleets engage.
At the first push, the massed Persian navy remains unmobile.
(dramatic music)
(crashing)
But soon, crammed into a tight space,
numerous Persian ships start getting in each other's way,
ramming into each other with their bronze rams.
Whole rows of oars are splintered.
(dramatic music)
(crashing)
Tainted with blood, the Battle of Salamis
ends and plunges the Persians into the darkness of grief.
(speaking foreign language)
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Xerxes is denied victory at sea.
His fleet is weakened by the lack of logistical support
from his imposing land army.
(dramatic music)
Xerxes leaves, never to have another opportunity
to invade Greece.
(dramatic music)
Salamis was not an ultimate defeat for Persia,
but it did show the Greeks that the Persians
were not invincible.
The Persian empire, far from being bled dry,
would continue for another 200 years.
Greece owed its salvation to the fleet of Themistocles,
to the determination of a man
who wanted his country to remain free at all costs.
(dramatic music)