This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Themistocles was an Athenian statesman and general, born around 524 BCE to a family of only modest standing, who rose to dominate Athenian politics in the years following the Battle of Marathon. As archon in 493 or 492 BCE he began fortifying the harbor at Piraeus, an early sign of the naval orientation that would define his career. In 483 or 482 BCE a rich new vein of silver was struck at the state mines of Laurion, and rather than let it be distributed directly to Athenian citizens, Themistocles persuaded the assembly to spend it building a fleet of triremes, the decision that gave Athens the navy it would need within a few years.
When Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 BCE, Themistocles led the Athenian envoys who consulted the Delphic oracle for guidance. The oracle's second response spoke of a wooden wall that would not fail, an ambiguous phrase open to more than one reading. Themistocles argued before the Athenian assembly, and afterward before the allied commanders gathered at Salamis itself, that the wooden wall meant the fleet he had built rather than a physical barricade around the city.
That reading persuaded Athens to evacuate its population and commit its ships to battle rather than defend the city directly, and Themistocles commanded the Athenian contingent at the resulting Battle of Salamis, the engagement that turned back the Persian invasion at sea. The fleet the Laurion silver had paid for, and the oracle he had persuaded Athens to read as describing it, together decided the campaign that saved the city from the invasion it faced.