Decode the largest naval battle in the history of the ancient world

After failing at the 490 Mar BC battle, the Persian Empire prepared for the greatest naval battle in the history of the ancient world with the Greek empire.

Accordingly, the Persian Emperor Xerxes deployed more than 1,200 warships and about 300,000 troops participated in the campaign against Greece. Before confronting the Greek forces at the naval battle, Persia lost 400 warships due to sunken sea storms. In contrast to the powerful Persian forces, Greece has a smaller number of ships (more than 330 war boats).

Picture 1 of Decode the largest naval battle in the history of the ancient world
The Persian army succeeded and moved the army to Salamis Bay - the battle field that Greece prepared to complete.(Illustration).

Initially, the Greek army lost to the powerful Persian forces at Thermoplylae and Artemisium. Later, the Greek military leader deliberately released some slaves to the Persian army to provide false intelligence. Thanks to that, the Persian army succeeded and moved the army to Salamis Bay - the battlefield that Greece prepared to complete. Specifically, Greek troops took advantage of positions, waiting for the opportunity to attack the Persian army. When the Persian army arrived, the Greek fleet only attacked more than 300 ships. This makes 800 large Persian warships moving difficult.

The reason is that Salamis Bay is quite narrow, unfavorable for the Persian fleet to deploy the battle with hundreds of "big" boats . In contrast to Persia, this terrain is beneficial to Greece because its warships are small and easy to move. Therefore, in just one fierce fighting day, the Persian fleet was defeated by Greek forces with more than 200 warships destroyed. With such a large loss, Persia must hastily withdraw. Meanwhile, Greece won in this sea battle with a loss of 30 warships. This is considered the historic victory of the Greeks before the powerful Persian force.

The bitter defeat at Salamis Bay extinguished the ambition of conquering Europe by Xerxes of the Persian Emperor.