A Greek trick lured the Persian navy into a strait too narrow to fight in

Facing a Persian fleet several times its size, the outnumbered Greek navy under Themistocles tricked King Xerxes into funneling his ships into the cramped Strait of Salamis in 480 BC. Packed too tightly to maneuver, the Persian fleet was destroyed by the smaller, more agile Greek triremes, and the naval defeat forced Xerxes to abandon his invasion of Greece.

— Herodotus, The Histories — Book VIII