Such was their counsel, but he would not follow it. What he desired was to take Athens once more; this was partly out of mere perversity, and partly because he intended to signify to the king at Sardis by a line of beacons across the islands that he held Athens. When he came to Attica, however, he found the city as unpopulated as before, for, as he learned, the majority of them were on shipboard at Salamis. So he took the city, but without any of its men. There were ten months between the kings taking of the place and the later invasion of Mardonius.