No Themistocles yet in the thread???????
When did anybody else in the thread win at the kind of odds at Salamis?
He also took Athens from a well-off, but militarily questionable power to the greatest sea power of its time by building 200 ships to face both Persia and Greece, and then turning Athens into a virtual island by building a big, long wall too well-defended to take with the tech of the time. And, he probably invented a third of the ideas your other candidates used.
When did anybody else in the thread win at the kind of odds at Salamis?
He also took Athens from a well-off, but militarily questionable power to the greatest sea power of its time by building 200 ships to face both Persia and Greece, and then turning Athens into a virtual island by building a big, long wall too well-defended to take with the tech of the time. And, he probably invented a third of the ideas your other candidates used.