Herodotus wrote The Histories, an inquiry into the Persian wars with the Greek cities. This is Book 8, Urania. Book 7 left Xerxes, the Persian king, through Thermopylae, a pass in central Greece, after Leonidas of Sparta died holding it; the fleet had fought off Euboea, and Athens was next.

After Thermopylae, Xerxes walks into central Greece. Athens is empty. The wooden wall an oracle promised is the fleet packed at Salamis, an island in the bay. Themistocles, an Athenian leader, threatens to sail for Italy, then sends a slave to Xerxes: the Greeks are about to flee — bottle them in. The Persians jam the straits. Artemisia, a queen fighting for Persia, rams a friend to live. Xerxes watches from shore, leaves Mardonius, his best remaining general, in Thessaly in the north, and runs for the Hellespont, the Dardanelles. The Athenians refuse terms. The rowers decide the war the soldiers at the pass could not. The victors are already quarreling. Plataea, the land battle that will finish Mardonius, is next.