Xerxes I invaded Greece in 480 BCE with a massive army and fleet.
Xerxes launched the invasion after succeeding his father, Darius I, who had begun the Persian wars against the Greek mainland. The expedition aimed to subdue the Greek states and punish Athens and its allies after the earlier Persian defeat at Marathon in 490 BCE.
The invasion force crossed the Hellespont using pontoon bridges. Persian troops then moved through northern Greece, while the fleet supported the land advance. Greek resistance at Thermopylae delayed the army, but Xerxes captured Athens before the Persian fleet suffered defeat at Salamis.
The campaign is sometimes confused with Darius’s invasion, which ended at Marathon. Xerxes’ invasion was the second major Persian invasion of Greece. After the defeat at Salamis and the later Persian loss at Plataea in 479 BCE, Xerxes returned to Asia.