Why did the Persians come to be fighting in the Aegean Sea at all? It may be difficult for children to grasp the specifics of the battle without some context to Persian expansion. The Persian king Cyrus the Great had single-handedly built his nation into an empire, not only by defeating his neighbors, but also by dividing up his holdings into a series of provinces -- called "satrapies" -- to make it easier to govern them. Children can easily grasp this concept if you compare it to the federal systems of Canada or the U.S., discussing how much more difficult administering the government would be without states or provinces, if everything were handled from the national capital. Darius, who is also called "the Great," expanded on this work, moving the Persian empire into Europe. A map of the world or a globe will come in handy to demonstrate the great distances involved. The Ionian Greeks, who lived in what is now Turkey, proved themselves indispensable to Darius, helping him win battles against the fierce Scythians, but this success convinced them they were strong enough to defeat Darius themselves. Because the Greeks of Athens had helped the Ionians, Darius attacked them, but his forces were defeated at the famous battle of Marathon. Ten years later, Darius' son Xerxes was determined to avenge his father's defeats -- and to finish the job he had started. The huge Persian army and navy were delayed by weather and by the heroic Spartan defense of Thermopylae, but they ultimately were freed to march upon Athens, the largest and richest of the Greek city-states.
The Straits of Salamis are between two and four miles wide. Children may think this sounds like a lot, but try to use maps or models to demonstrate the relative narrowness of this passage, which provides access to the harbor nearest Athens and to the central Greek highlands. The Greek fleet had about 300 ships; the Persian fleet, about 1,200, though many of these would have been supply vessels. The Persians entered the strait in three lines. If possible, show students models -- or at least pictures -- of ancient Mediterranean warships, to help them visualize the scene.
The Persians needed access to the area beyond the straits in order to deliver the supplies their ships carried to their huge land army. So the Athenian general, Themistocles, positioned his smaller fleet in the straits, where they would have a better chance of defending themselves against the larger Persian fleet. The Greek historian Herodotus reported that Themistocles clinched the Persians' plan by sending a spy to report that the Greeks had abandoned their positions around Salamis. Greek eyewitness accounts report that the Greek ships rowed backward to further lure the Persians by appearing to retreat . Herodotus reports that the Persians fought bravely -- because Emperor Xerxes was watching from a throne high on the shore -- but that the close quarters hampered their large ships' ability to maneuver.
Although the Greek naval victory was conclusive, it need not have crippled the Persian invasion; the land army was still powerfully large. The impact on the Persians' morale and reputation, however, was enormous, and Xerxes had to return to the heart of his empire in order to prevent the previously conquered satrapies from rebelling. Children may understand this better with a visual metaphor: Compare Xerxes' job to trying to hold grains of rice in one hand; trying to catch every grain that slips away might cause him to lose the entire handful. Although he left a competent general and a large army behind in Greece to continue the invasion, he was unable to make full use of them, because he had to pull those forces back eastward the following year to oppose further rebellion there. For these reasons, the Battle of Salamis is considered the turning point in the Greco-Persian wars.