The Athenians had fled to Salamis after the Battle of Thermopylae in August, 480 BC, while the Persians occupied and burned their city. The Greek fleet joined them there in August after the indecisive Battle of Artemisium. The Spartans wanted to return to the Peloponnese, seal off the Isthmus of Corinth with a wall, and prevent the Persians from defeating them on land, but the Athenian commander Themistocles persuaded them to remain at Salamis, arguing that a wall across the Isthmus was pointless as long as the Persian army could be transported and supplied by the Persian navy. His argument depended on a particular interpretation of the oracle at Delphi, which, in typical Delphic ambiguity, prophesized that Salamis would "bring death to women's
