THEMISTOCLES
He was a great leader and however grew unpopular over time and was voted to be banished which he was.
The Persians arrived at an abandoned city and burned some of the major buildings. All the Athenian men went to the island of Salamis where he gathered Greeks from the other city states. They boarded ships and tricked the march larger Persian fleet into coming into the narrow part of the straits where it could not maneuver. The Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet with relatively few losses and with it went Xerxes dreams of conquest of the Greeks. The Persian navy could not feed their army and the Persians, the greatest empire of the day, retuned to Persia in defeat.
I may not know how to tune a lyre, but I know all that I need to know to make a city great and free.
Themistocles was not of an upper class family and did not have many of the typical social graces of the time. However he did not worry about that and became the victorious admiral over the Persians and Archon of Athens which made him the leader of all the Greeks. He however grew unpopular over time and was voted to be banished which he was.
Themistocles (/θəˈmɪstəkliːz/; Greek: Θεμιστοκλῆς [tʰemistoklɛ̂ːs]; "Glory of the Law"; c. 524–459 BC) was an Athenian politician and general. He was one of a new breed of non-aristocratic politicians who rose to prominence in the early years of the Athenian democracy. As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower-class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility. Elected archon in 493 BC, he convinced the polis to increase the naval power of Athens, a recurring theme in his political career. During the first Persian invasion of Greece he fought at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) and was possibly one of the ten Athenian strategoi (generals) in that battle.
