Approaching Artemisium towards the end of summer, the Persian navy was caught in a gale off the coast of Magnesia and lost around a third of their 1200 ships.

After arriving at Artemisium, the Persians sent a detachment of 200 ships around the coast of Euboea in an attempt to trap the Greeks, but these were caught in another storm and shipwrecked.

The Persians overran and gained control over Phocis, then Boeotia, and finally entered Attica where they captured the now-evacuated Athens.

Fearing being trapped in Europe, Xerxes withdrew with much of his army to Asia, leaving Mardonius to complete the conquest of Greece.

The Persian emperor Xerxes I decided that the Hellespont had to be bridged for his army to cross to Europe, and that a canal should be dug across the isthmus of Mount Athos.

[2] By early 480 BC, the preparations were complete, and the army Xerxes had mustered at Sardis marched towards Europe, crossing the Hellespont on two pontoon bridges.

[4] However, the Athenians did not have the manpower to fight on land and sea; and therefore combating the Persians would require an alliance of Greek city states.

A congress of city states met at Corinth in late autumn of 481 BC,[6] and a confederate alliance of Greek city-states was formed.

A Thessalian delegation suggested that the allies could muster in the narrow Vale of Tempe, on the borders of Thessaly, and thereby block Xerxes's advance.

However, once there, they were warned by Alexander I of Macedon that the vale could be bypassed through the Sarantoporo Pass, and that the army of Xerxes was overwhelming, the Greeks retreated.

The route to southern Greece (Boeotia, Attica and the Peloponnesus) would require the army of Xerxes to travel through the very narrow pass of Thermopylae.

[11] The Allied fleet sailed north to Cape Artemisium once it became known that the Persian army was advancing along the coast past Mount Olympus, probably around late July or the beginning of August.

[13] The Allies sent three ships to Skiathos as scouts to provide warning of the approach of the Persian fleet but two weeks passed without sight.

Finally, ten Sidonian triremes arrived off Skiathos, sent on a scouting mission by the Persian fleet anchored at Therma in Macedonia.

If the Persians sailed around the outer, eastern side of Euboea, they could head straight to Attica, and thereby cut off the Allied fleet's line of retreat.

The same day, the Persian fleet finally appeared through the Gap of Sciathos, and began mooring on the coast opposite Artemisium, at Aphetae.

[27] The Allies probably waited until late afternoon so that there was little chance of being drawn into a full scale engagement; they did not want to suffer casualties before sailing to meet to the Persian detachment.

[36] Other authors reject this number, with 1,207 being seen as more of a reference to the combined Greek fleet in the Iliad, and generally claim that the Persians could have launched no more than around 600 warships into the Aegean.

[49] When the Persians saw the Allied fleet rowing towards them, they decided to seize the opportunity to attack, even though it was late in the day, as they thought they would win an easy victory.

[22] During the night, another storm broke (this time probably a thunder-storm, possibly with a south easterly wind),[20] preventing the Allies from setting off southwards to counter the Persian detachment sent around the outside of Euboea.

[52] Again waiting until late afternoon, the Allies took the opportunity to attack a patrol of Cilician ships, destroying them, before retreating as night fell.

Since holding the Straits of Artemisium now no longer held any strategic purpose, and given their losses, the Allies decided to evacuate immediately.

En route, Themistocles left inscriptions addressed to the Ionian Greek crews of the Persian fleet on all springs of water that they might stop at, asking them to defect to the Allied cause:[61] Men of Ionia, that what you are doing is not proper, campaigning against your fathers and wishing to enslave Greece.

But if you can not do either the one or the other, if you are chained by higher force and you can not defect during the operations, when we come at hand, act purposely as cowards remembering that we are of the same blood and that the first cause of animosity with the barbarians came from you.

[62] Meanwhile, the Allies (for the most part Peloponnesian) prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth, demolishing the single road that led through it, and building a wall across it.

Mardonius withdrew to Boeotia to lure the Greeks into open terrain and the two sides eventually met near the city of Plataea.

[68] Meanwhile, at the near-simultaneous naval Battle of Mycale the Greeks destroyed much of the remaining Persian fleet, thereby reducing the threat of further invasions.

The historian Jan van Rookhuijzen says that the capture of loot is not confirmed, but makes note of Herodotus listing multiple details about the Persian armor in his account.

[73][74] In addition, the events before and during Artemisium were crucial in cutting down the size of the Persian fleet (even if this was not all due to military action), meaning that the odds faced by the Allies at the Battle of Salamis were not overwhelming.

Simonides of Ceos had written a poem on Artemisium, with allusions to the abduction of the Athenian princess Oreithyia by the wind god Boreas.