The Twitter Herodotus

8.51 The Persians had taken 4 months to get from the Hellespont to Attica. They found it deserted except for a few men on the Acropolis.

8.52 The Persians besieged the Acropolis, shooting flaming arrows at the Athenians' wooden defenses. The defenders launched stones at them.

8.53 Finally some of the Persians climbed the Acropolis and let the rest in. They butchered the Athenians and set the Acropolis on fire.

8.54 Having taken Athens, Xerxes sent a man to Susa with the news. He also bid some Athenian exiles to perform sacrifices on the Acropolis.

8.55 There's a sacred olive tree on the Acropolis. The Persians burned it, but by the next day it had grown a new, 1.5-foot shoot.

8.56 When the Greeks heard what had happened on the Acropolis, they resolved to fight for the Isthmus, and they repaired to their ships.

8.57 Now an Athenian, Mnesiphilus, privately urged Themistocles to make Eurybiades change his mind: if they left Salamis the war was lost.

8.58 Themistocles went off to talk to Eurybiades. He persuaded him to get off his ship and summon the generals to a conference.

8.59 At the conference Themistocles started speaking before Eurybiades. He was chided for doing so by the Corinthian Adeimantus.

8.60 Themistocles explained why fighting off of Salamis was best: e.g., the Greeks' smaller fleet would fare better in the confined space.