Persian Wars · 480-479 BC

480 BC: Thermopylae and Salamis

Ten years after Marathon, Xerxes brought the largest army the Greeks had ever seen across the Hellespont. Students follow it to the pass of Thermopylae, watch Athens empty its city, and see the war decided in the narrow strait of Salamis.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 480 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Ten years after Marathon, Xerxes brought the largest army the Greeks had ever seen across the Hellespont. Students follow it to the pass of Thermopylae, watch Athens empty its city, and see the war decided in the narrow strait of Salamis.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Trace Xerxes's route from the Hellespont to Athens on the map.
  • Explain why the Greeks chose to fight at Thermopylae and at Salamis: narrow places against a bigger enemy.
  • Describe the outcome of 480-479 BC and what it meant for Greece and for Persia.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

480 BC

Crossing into Europe

Open the map in 480 BC on the Hellespont (Dardanelles). Xerxes's engineers tied hundreds of ships together to make two bridges here, and his army walked from Asia into Europe. Trace the route his army and fleet took along the coast of Thrace and Macedonia toward Greece.

Open this view on the map
b

480 BC

The hot gates

Move to Thermopylae and turn on Historical Events (Battles). Find "Battle of Thermopylae". In 480 BC the pass between the mountains and the sea was only a few meters wide in places; today the coastline has moved. Why did a few thousand Greeks choose to stand here?

Open this view on the map
c

480 BC

Salamis

Go to the island of Salamis, west of Athens, and find "Battle of Salamis". The Athenians had left their city, which the Persians burned. In the narrow strait the Greek triremes rammed the crowded Persian fleet. Zoom in and judge how much room the ships had.

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Herodotus counted Xerxes's army in the millions. Modern historians think it was far smaller, though still enormous for its time. Why do ancient writers exaggerate numbers, and how do historians check them?
  2. Leonidas and his 300 Spartans stayed to die at Thermopylae when the pass was turned. The Thespians, 700 of them, stayed too but are rarely remembered. Why do some stories get told and others not?
  3. The oracle at Delphi told the Athenians to trust in "wooden walls". Themistocles said it meant ships. How much did the Greek victory depend on reading one riddle the right way?
  4. The Athenians abandoned their city and let it burn rather than surrender. What does it take to make a whole people do that?
  5. After 479 BC Persia never invaded Greece again, but it stayed the richest power in the world and later paid Greeks to fight each other. Who really won the Persian Wars?
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Darius the Great, Xerxes's father, and find the ruling about punishing Greece. Then debate as Xerxes in 480 BC: after Salamis, do you stay in Greece or go home? Xerxes went home and left his general Mardonius, who lost at Plataea in 479 BC.

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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