The Finale

Salamis

Themistocles drew the King's fleet into the narrow strait, where its numbers counted for little. Xerxes watched from a throne on the shore. Aeschylus, said to have fought there, staged 'The Persians' eight years later, the only Greek tragedy on an event of its own time to survive.

Herodotus 8.40-96; Aeschylus, The Persians

Mardonius's offer

Alexander of Macedon brought Athens the King's offer: freedom, its land back and more, and its temples rebuilt. The Athenians said they would never make peace while the sun kept its course.

Herodotus 8.136-144

The fort on the Asopus

Mardonius built a square wooden fort about ten stades a side on the Asopus, in the land of Thebes, which sided with Persia. A Theban noble feasted the Persian officers in Thebes before the battle.

In the game: The fort is the level's great work, and Theban caravans bring its timber.

Herodotus 9.15-16

Masistius

Masistius led the Persian horse in golden scale armour under a purple tunic. When his horse was shot, the Greeks killed him through the eye, and carried his body along the lines to be seen.

In the game: Plataea's decree asks for a cavalry stable.

Herodotus 9.20-25

Gargaphia

The Persian horsemen fouled the spring of Gargaphia that watered the Greek army, and the Greeks had to move by night.

In the game: The King's horsemen near a Greek camp at day's end foul its water.

Herodotus 9.49-51

The battle

The Greek night move went wrong, and Mardonius attacked the Spartans and Tegeans. The Persians fought bravely, Herodotus says, but without armour against men in armour. Mardonius was killed by a Spartan named Arimnestus, and the fort was stormed.

In the game: Mardonius rides with the Persians on the field; when he falls, those about him break for the camp.

Herodotus 9.59-70

Artabazus

Artabazus son of Pharnaces commanded some forty thousand men and had argued against giving battle. When it came he held his division back, and when he saw the Persians running he led it off the field, north through Phocis and home over the Hellespont.

In the game: On the field his division holds back, and marches off when Mardonius falls.

Herodotus 9.41-42, 9.66, 9.89

Two meals

In Mardonius's tent Pausanias had his cooks lay out a Persian feast beside a Spartan meal, and laughed at the folly of a man who lived like that and came to rob Greeks of their poor fare.

Herodotus 9.80-82

The Serpent Column

The Greeks gave Apollo at Delphi a golden tripod on a bronze column of three twisted serpents, with the names of the cities that fought. Constantine moved it to his new capital. It still stands in Istanbul, and the names can still be read.

Herodotus 9.81; Thucydides 1.132; the column in Istanbul's Hippodrome