The Hellenic League
To Hellenikon
Herodotus's Hellenikon — the congress of Greek poleis that convened at the Isthmus of Corinth in late 481 BC to coordinate resistance to Xerxes's invasion, with Sparta and Athens as co-hegemons under Spartan military leadership. The alliance fought the four great actions of the second invasion (Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, Mycale) together, and the naval wing of it carried over after 479 into the liberation of the eastern Greeks, becoming the Delian League under Athenian leadership by 477. Used here as the collective protagonist of the Persian Wars journey: not a single commander but a shifting command structure — Leonidas and Themistocles and Pausanias and Leotychidas each in their turn, with Aristides holding the Athenian contingent across all four battles.