The campaigning season of 479 opened to a sense of uneasy calm, the belligerents all equally at a loss how to strike the decisive blow which all alike knew would spell freedom or subjection for the Greeks, for the Persians a continuing drain of resources or a secure frontier in the west.

The first forces to move were the naval on either side. In early spring the Persian fleet mustered at Samos, having passed the winter in two divisions, there and at Cyme, no doubt for greater ease of provisioning as well as to keep hold of the eastern Greeks (Hdt. VIII.130.1–2). The fleet numbered 300 including Greek vessels, according to Herodotus, a very different figure from the 1,207 triremes and 3,000 smaller vessels which he gives for its strength in Xerxes' review at Doriscus the previous year, even though more than half of those triremes are said to have been lost by the end of the battle of Artemisium, to say nothing of the further losses at Salamis. In fact one assumes that the numbers in 480 are much exaggerated; and the figure of 300 in 479 may be likewise, not necessarily by the same factor. As to the composition of the Persian fleet at this time, we can only speculate. The Egyptian marines had been left with Mardonius and the land forces (Hdt. IX.32): presumably the ships which bore them had sailed for the Delta before winter came on.