A copy of Themistocles' order to evacuate Athens was discovered on stone in the back of a Greek coffee house in 1959. It reads:

"The Athenians and all foreigners who live in Athens shall send their children and wives to the village of Troizen. All men should embark on the 200 ships that have been prepared to fight the barbarian."

Themistocles' proposal that the Athenians should abandon their city and engage the enemy in a naval battle did not win universal approval. Battles were traditionally fought on land and many of the more conservative elements in Athens' citizenry opposed such a dishonorable way to fight.

Fortunately, he received support from two unexpected quarters. One was a young aristocrat, Cimon, the son of Miltiades, the victorious Athenian general at Marathon ten years before. He symbolically exchanged his riding equipment for the shield of a hoplite, showing that he had chosen not to fight as a knight, but as a soldier on board one of the triremes.

Supernatural assistance came from the goddess Athena herself: her holy serpent disappeared from its cave on the Acropolis and left its sacrificial food untouched - though perhaps Themistocles' himself may have played a part in the snake's apparent abduction...

The stone copy later proved to be a fake, but a most unusual one. In fact it had been sculpted some 200 years after the event - perhaps to commemorate it.