I told him that we had had battles in our own country not near so long ago and that the people who were killed there were all dead.
He could not understand what that had to do with the matter and neither could I.
The positions of the armies and fleets during the battle are described with sufficient precision by the historians, though there has been much discussion concerning the movements which gave the victory to the Greeks, and destroyed the Persian fleet. The locality of the throne of Xerxes is also in dispute, one authority, placing it in the hollow between two low hills, while another has it on the summit of a hill overlooking the bay. The latter theory is more likely to be the correct one. Byron says of the affair:
“The King sate on the rocky brow,
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis,
And ships, by thousands lay below
And men in nations, all were his.
He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set, where were they?”
The day after this excursion we made a journey to Mount Pentelicus, whence came the most of the marble used in the erection of the Parthenon, and other temples of Athens.