The CDPD Public Domain Collection for CDTV 3/CDPDIII.bin/books/plutarch/themistocles

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                                      75 AD
                                  THEMISTOCLES
                                  445-365 B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden
THEMISTOCLES

  THE birth of Themistocles was somewhat too obscure to do him honour.
His father, Neocles, was not of the distinguished people of Athens,
but of the township Phrearrhi, and of the tribe Leontis; and by his
mother's side, as it is reported, he was base-born-

         "I am not of the noble Grecian race,
         I'm poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace;
         Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please,
         I was the mother of Themistocles."

  Yet Phanias writes that the mother of Themistocles was not of
Thrace, but of Caria, and that her name was not Abrotonon, but
Euterpe; and Neanthes adds farther that she was of Halicarnassus in
Caria. And, as illegitimate children, including those that were of
half-blood or had but one parent an Athenian, had to attend at the
Cynosarges (a wrestling-place outside the gates, dedicated to
Hercules, who was also of half-blood amongst the gods, having had a
mortal woman for his mother), Themistocles persuaded several of the
young men of high birth to accompany him to anoint and exercise
themselves together at Cynosarges; an ingenious device for
destroying the distinction between the noble and the base-born, and
between those of the whole and those of the half-blood of Athens.
However, it is certain that he was related to the house of
Lycomedae; for Simonides records that he rebuilt the chapel of
Phlya, belonging to that family, and beautified it with pictures and
other ornaments, after it had been burnt by the Persians.
  It is confessed by all that from his youth he was of a vehement
and impetuous nature, of a quick apprehension, and a strong and
aspiring bent for action and great affairs. The holidays and intervals
in his studies he did not spend in play or idleness, as other
children, but would be always inventing or arranging some oration or
declamation to himself, the subject of which was generally the
excusing or accusing his companions, so that his master would often
say to him, "You, my boy, will be nothing small, but great one way
or other, for good or else for bad." He received reluctantly and
carelessly instructions given him to improve his manners and
behaviour, or to teach him any pleasing or graceful accomplishment,
but whatever was said to improve him in sagacity, or in management
of affairs, he would give attention to, beyond one of his years,
from confidence in his natural capacities for such things. And thus
afterwards, when in company where people engaged themselves in what
are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was
obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who
considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant
retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed
instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his
hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this,
Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and
that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to
chronology; Melissus commanded the Samians in the siege by Pericles,
who was much Themistocles's junior; and with Pericles, also,
Anaxagoras was intimate. They, therefore, might rather be credited who
report, that Themistocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the
Phrearrhian, who was neither rhetorican nor natural philosopher, but a
professor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting in a sort
of political shrewdness and practical sagacity, which had begun and
continued, almost like a sect of philosophy, from Solon: but those who
came afterwards, and mixed it with pleadings and legal artifices,
and transformed the practical part of it into a mere art of speaking
and an exercise of words, were generally called sophists. Themistocles
resorted to Mnesiphilus when he had already embarked in politics.
  In the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily
balanced; he allowed himself to follow mere natural character,
which, without the control of reason and instruction, is apt to hurry,
upon either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to
break away and determine upon the worst; as he afterwards owned
himself, saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if
they only get properly trained and broken in. But those who upon
this fasten stories of their own invention, as of his being disowned
by his father, and that his mother died for grief of her son's
ill-fame, certainly calumniate him; and there are others who relate,
on the contrary, how that to deter him from public business, and to
let him see how the vulgar behave themselves towards their leaders
when they have at last no farther use of them, his father showed him
the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about upon the
sea-shore.
  Yet it is evident that his mind was early imbued with the keenest
interest in public affairs, and the most passionate ambition for
distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he
unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and
influential leaders in the city, but more especially of Aristides, the
son of Lysimachus, who always opposed him. And yet all this great
enmity between them arose, it appears, from a very boyish occasion,
both being attached to the beautiful Stesilaus of Ceos, as Ariston the
philosopher tells us; ever after which they took opposite sides, and
were rivals in politics. Not but that the incompatibility of their
lives and manners may seem to have increased the difference, for
Aristides was of a mild nature, and of a nobler sort of character,
and, in public matters, acting always with a view, not to glory or
popularity, but to the best interest of the state consistently with
safety and honesty, he was often forced to oppose Themistocles, and
interfere against the increase of his influence, seeing him stirring
up the people to all kinds of enterprises, and introducing various
innovations. For it is said that Themistocles was so transported
with the thoughts of glory and so inflamed with the passion for
great actions, that, though he was still young when the battle of
Marathon was fought against the Persians, upon the skilful conduct
of the general, Miltiades, being everywhere talked about, he was
observed to be thoughtful and reserved, alone by himself; he passed
the nights without sleep, and avoided all his usual places of
recreation, and to those who wondered at the change, and inquired
the reason of it, he gave the answer, that "the trophy of Miltiades
would not let him sleep." And when others were of opinion that the
battle of Marathon would be an end to the war, Themistocles thought
that it was but the beginning for far greater conflicts, and for
these, to the benefit of all Greece, he kept himself in continual
readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far
before what would happen.
  And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide
amongst themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at
Laurium, he was the only man that durst propose to the people that
this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should
be built to make war against the Aeginetans, who were the most
flourishing people in all Greece, and by the number of their ships
held the sovereignty of the sea; and Themistocles thus was more easily
able to persuade them, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or
the Persians, who were at a great distance, and their coming very
uncertain, and at that time not much to be feared; but by a seasonable
employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against
the Aeginetans, he induced them to preparation. So that with this
money an hundred ships were built, with which they afterwards fought
against Xerxes. And henceforward, little by little, turning and
drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief that, whereas
by land they were not a fit match for their next neighbours, with
their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command
Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them
into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for
the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the
spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These
measures he carried in the assembly, against the opposition, as
Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades; and whether or no be hereby
injured the purity and true balance of government may be a question
for philosophers, but that the deliverance of Greece came at that time
from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens again after it
was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself would be sufficient
evidence, who, though his land-forces were still entire, after his
defeat at sea, fled away, and thought himself no longer able to
encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left Mardonius behind
him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection,
but to hinder them from pursuing him.
  Themistocles is said to have been eager in the acquisition of
riches, according to some, that he might be the more liberal; for
loving to sacrifice often, and to be splendid in his entertainment
of strangers, he required a plentiful revenue; yet he is accused by
others of having been parsimonious and sordid to that degree that he
would sell provisions which were sent to him as a present. He
desired Diphilides, who was a breeder of horses, to give him a colt,
and when he refused it, threatened that in a short time he would
turn his house into a wooden horse, intimating that he would stir up
dispute and litigation between him and some of his relations.
  He went beyond all men in the passion for distinction. When he was
still young and unknown in the world, he entreated Episcles of
Hermione, who had a good hand at the lute and was much sought after by
the Athenians, to come and practise at home with him, being
ambitious of having people inquire after his house and frequent his
company. When he came to the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his
equipage and entertainments, in his rich tents and furniture, that
he strove to outdo Cimon, he displeased the Greeks, who thought that
such magnificence might be allowed in one who was a young man and of a
great family, but was a great piece of insolence in one as yet
undistinguished, and without title or means for making any such
display. In a dramatic contest, the play he paid for won the price,
which was then a matter that excited much emulation; he put up a
tablet in record of it, with the inscription: "Themistocles of
Phrearrhi was at the charge of it; Phrynichus made it; Adimantus was
archon." He was well liked by the common people, would salute every
particular citizen by his own name, and always show himself a just
judge in questions of business between private men; he said to
Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired something of him, when he was
commander of the army, that was not reasonable, "Simonides, you
would be no good poet if you wrote false measure, nor should I be a
good magistrate if for favour I made false law." and at another
time, laughing at Simonides, he said, that he was a man of little
judgment to speak against the Corinthians, who were inhabitants of a
great city, and to have his own picture drawn so often, having so
ill-looking a face.
  Gradually growing to be great, and winning the favour of the people,
he at last gained the day with his faction over that of Aristides, and
procured his banishment by ostracism. When the king of Persia was
now advancing against Greece, and the Athenians were in consultation
who should be general, and many withdrew themselves of their own
accord, being terrified with the greatness of the danger, there was
one Epicydes, a popular speaker, son to Euphemides a man of an elegant
tongue, but of a faint heart, and a slave to riches who was desirous
of the command, and was looked upon to be in a fair way to carry it by
the number of votes; but Themistocles, fearing that, if the command
should fall into such hands, all would be lost, bought off Epicydes
and his pretensions, it is said, for a sum of money.
  When the king of Persia sent messengers into Greece, with an
interpreter, to demand earth and water, as an acknowledgment of
subjection, Themistocles, by the consent of the people, seized upon
the interpreter, and put him to death, for presuming to publish the
barbarian orders and decrees in the Greek language; this is one of the
actions he is commended for, as also for what he did to Arthmius of
Zelea, who brought gold from the king of Persia to corrupt the Greeks,
and was, by an order from Themistocles, degraded and disfranchised, he
and his children and his posterity; but that which most of all
redounded to his credit was, that he put an end to all the civil
wars of Greece, composed their differences, and persuaded them to
lay aside all enmity during the war with the Persians; and in this
great work, Chileus the Arcadian was, it is said, of great
assistance to him.
  Having taken upon himself the command of the Athenian forces, he
immediately endeavoured to persuade the citizens to leave the city,
and to embark upon their galleys, and meet with the Persians at a
great distance from Greece; but many being against this, he led a
large force, together with the Lacedaemonians, into Tempe, that in
this pass they might maintain the safety of Thessaly, which had not as
yet declared for the king; but when they returned without performing
anything, and it was known that not only the Thessalians, but all as
far as Boeotia, was going over to Xerxes, then the Athenians more
willingly hearkened to the advice of Themistocles to fight by sea, and
sent him with a fleet to guard the straits of Artemisium.
  When the contingents met here, the Greeks would have the
Lacedaemonians to command, and Eurybiades to be their admiral; but the
Athenians, who surpassed all the rest together in number of vessels,
would not submit to come after any other, till Themistocles,
perceiving the danger of the contest, yielded his own command to
Eurybiades, and got the Athenians to submit, extenuating the loss by
persuading them, that if in this war they behaved themselves like men,
he would answer for it after that, that the Greeks, of their own will,
would submit to their command. And by this moderation of his, it is
evident that he was the chief means of the deliverance of Greece,
and gained the Athenians the glory of alike surpassing their enemies
in valour, and their confederates in wisdom.
  As soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetae, Eurybiades was
astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and
being informed that two hundred more were sailing around behind the
island of Sciathus, he immediately determined to retire farther into
Greece, and to sail back into some part of Peloponnesus, where their
land army and their fleet might join, for he looked upon the Persian
forces to be altogether unassailable by sea. But the Euboeans, fearing
that the Greeks would forsake them, and leave them to the mercy of the
enemy, sent Pelagon to confer privately with Themistocles, taking with
him a good sum of money, which, as Herodotus reports, he accepted
and gave to Eurybiades. In this affair none of his own countrymen
opposed him so much as Architeles, captain of the sacred galley,
who, having no money to supply his seamen, was eager to go home; but
Themistocles so incensed the Athenians against them, that they set
upon him and left him not so much as his supper, at which Architeles
was much surprised, and took it very ill; but Themistocles immediately
sent him in a chest a service of provisions, and at the bottom of it a
talent of silver, desiring him to sup tonight, and to-morrow provide
for his seamen; if not, he would report it among the Athenians that he
had received money from the enemy. So Phanias the Lesbian tells the
story.
  Though the fights between the Greeks and Persians in the straits
of Euboea were not so important as to make any final decision of the
war, yet the experience which the Greeks obtained in them was of great
advantage; for thus, by actual trial and in real danger, they found
out that neither number of ships, nor riches and ornaments, nor
boasting shouts, nor barbarous songs of victory, were any way terrible
to men that knew how to fight, and were resolved to come hand to
hand with their enemies; these things they were to despise, and to
come up close and grapple with their foes. This Pindar appears to have
seen, and says justly enough of the fight at Artemisium, that-

         "There the sons of Athens set
         The stone that freedom stands on yet."

For the first step towards victory undoubtedly is to gain courage,
Artemisium is in Euboea, beyond the city of Histiaea, a sea-beach open
to the north; most nearly opposite to it stands Olizon, in the country
which formally was under Philoctetes; there is a small temple there,
dedicated to Diana, surnamed of the Dawn, and trees about it, around
which again stand pillars of white marble; and if you rub them with
your hand, they send forth both the smell and colour of saffron. On
one of these pillars these verses are engraved:-

         "With numerous tribes from Asia's region brought
         The sons of Athens on these waters fought;
         Erecting, after they had quelled the Mede,
         To Artemis this record of the deed."

There is a place still to be seen upon this shore, where, in the
middle of a great heap of sand, they take out from the bottom a dark
powder like ashes, or something that has passed the fire; and here, it
is supposed, the shipwrecks and bodies of the dead were burnt.
  But when news came from Thermopylae to Artemisium informing them
that king Leonidas was slain, and that Xerxes had made himself
master of all the passages by land, they returned back to the interior
of Greece, the Athenians having the command of the rear, the place
of honour and danger, and much elated by what had been done.
  As Themistocles sailed along the coasts, he took notice of the
harbours and fit places for the enemy's ships to come to land at,
and engraved large letters in such stones as he found there by chance,
as also in others which he set up on purpose near to the
landing-places, or where they were to water; in which inscriptions
he called upon the Ionians to forsake the Medes, if it were
possible, and to come over to the Greeks, who were their proper
founders and fathers, and were now hazarding all for their
liberties; but, if this could not be done, at any rate to impede and
disturb the Persians in all engagements. He hoped that these
writings would prevail with the Ionians to revolt, or raise some
trouble by making their fidelity doubtful to the Persians.
  Now, though Xerxes has already passed through Doris and invaded
the country of Phocis, and was burning and destroying the cities of
the Phocians, yet the Greeks sent them no relief; and, though the
Athenians earnestly desired them to meet the Persians in Boeotia,
before they could come into Attica, as they themselves had come
forward by sea at Artemisium, they gave no ear to their requests,
being wholly intent upon Peloponnesus, and resolved to gather all
their forces together within the Isthmus, and to build a wall from sea
to sea in that narrow neck of land; so that the Athenians were enraged
to see themselves betrayed, and at the same time afflicted and
dejected at their own destitution. For to fight alone against such a
numerous army was to no purpose, and the only expedient now left
them was to leave their city and cling to their ships; which the
people were very unwilling to submit to, imagining that it would
signify little now to gain a victory, and not understanding how
there could be deliverance any longer after they had once forsaken the
temples of their gods and exposed the tombs and monuments of their
ancestors to the fury of their enemies.
  Themistocles, being at a loss, and not able to draw the people
over to his opinion by any human reason, set his machines to work,
as in a theatre, and employed prodigies and oracles. The serpent of
Minerva, kept in the inner part of her temple, disappeared; the priest
gave it out to the people that the offerings which were set for it
were found untouched, and declared, by the suggestion of Themistocles,
that the goddess had left the city, and taken her flight before them
towards the sea. And he often urged them with the oracle which bade
them trust to walls of wood, showing them that walls of wood could
signify nothing else but ships- and that the island of Salamis was
termed in it, not miserable or unhappy, but had the epithet of divine,
for that it should one day be associated with a great good fortune
of the Greeks. At length his opinion prevailed, and he obtained a
decree that the city should be committed to the protection of Minerva,
"Queen of Athens;" that they who were of age to bear arms should
embark, and that each should see to sending away his children,
women, and slaves where he could. This decree being confirmed, most of
the Athenians removed their parents, wives, and children to Troezen,
where they were received with eager good-will by the Troezenians,
who passed a vote that they should be maintained at the public charge,
by a daily payment of two obols to every one, and leave be given to
the children to gather fruit where they pleased, and schoolmasters
paid to instruct them. This vote was proposed by Nicagoras.
  There was no public treasure at that time in Athens; but the council
of Areopagus, as Aristotle says, distributed to every one that
served eight drachmas, which was a great help to the manning of the
fleet; but Clidemus ascribes this also to the art of Themistocles.
When the Athenians were on their way down to the haven of Piraeus, the
shield with the head of Medusa was missing; and be, under the
pretext of searching for it, ransacked all places, and found among
their goods considerable sums of money concealed, which he applied
to the public use; and with this the soldiers and seamen were well
provided for their voyage.
  When the whole city of Athens were going on board, it afforded a
spectacle worthy alike of pity and admiration, to see them thus send
away their fathers and children before them, and, unmoved with their
cries and tears, passed over into the island. But that which stirred
compassion most of all was, that many old men, by reason of their
great age, were left behind; and even the tame domestic animals
could not be seen without some pity, running about the town and
howling, as desirous to be carried along with their masters that had
kept them; among which it is reported that Xanthippus, the father of
Pericles, had a dog that would not endure to stay behind, but leaped
into the sea, and swam along by the galley's side till he came to
the island of Salamis, where he fainted away and died, and that spot
in the island, which is still called the Dog's Grave, is said to be
his.
  Among the great actions of Themistocles at this crisis, the recall
of Aristides was not the least, for, before the war, he had been
ostracized by the party which Themistocles headed, and was in
banishment; but now, perceiving that the people regretted his absence,
and were fearful that he might go over to the Persians to revenge
himself, and thereby ruin the affairs of Greece, Themistocles proposed
a decree that those who were banished for a time might return again,
to give assistance by word and deed to the cause of Greece with the
rest of their fellow-citizens.
  Eurybiades, by reason of the greatness of Sparta, was admiral of the
Greek fleet, but yet was faint-hearted in time of danger, and
willing to weigh anchor and set sail for the isthmus of Corinth,
near which the land army lay encamped; which Themistocles resisted;
and this was the occasion of the well-known words, when Eurybiades, to
check his impatience, told him that at the Olympic games they that
start up before the rest are lashed; "And they," replied Themistocles,
"that are left behind are not crowned." Again, Eurybiades lifting up
his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike if
you will, but hear;" Eurybiades, wondering much at his moderation,
desired him to speak, and Themistocles now brought him to a better
understanding. And when one who stood by him told him that it did
not become those who had neither city nor house to lose, to persuade
others to relinquish their habitations and forsake their countries,
Themistocles gave this reply: "We have indeed left our houses and
our walls, base fellow, not thinking it fit to become slaves for the
sake of things that have no life nor soul; and yet our city is the
greatest of all Greece, consisting of two hundred galleys, which are
here to defend you, if you please; but if you run away and betray
us, as you did once before, the Greeks shall soon hear news of the
Athenians possessing as fair a country, and as large and free a
city, as that they have lost." These expressions of Themistocles
made Eurybiades suspect that if he retreated the Athenians would
fall off from him. When one of Eretria began to oppose him, he said,
"Have you anything to say of war, that are like an inkfish? you have a
sword, but no heart." Some say that while Themistocles was thus
speaking upon the deck, an owl was seen flying to the right hand of
the fleet, which came and sate upon the top of the mast; and this
happy omen so far disposed the Greeks to follow his advice, that
they presently prepared to fight. Yet, when the enemy's fleet was
arrived at the haven of Phalerum, upon the coast of Attica, and with
the number of their ships concealed all the shore, and when they saw
the king himself in person come down with his land army to the
seaside, with all his forces united, then the good counsel of
Themistocles was soon forgotten, and the Peloponnesians cast their
eyes again towards the isthmus, and took it very ill if any one
spoke against their returning home; and, resolving to depart that
night, the pilots had orders what course to steer.
  Themistocles, in great distress that the Greeks should retire, and
lose the advantage of the narrow seas and strait passage, and slip
home every one to his own city, considered with himself, and contrived
that stratagem that was carried out by Sicinnus. This Sicinnus was a
Persian captive, but a great lover of Themistocles, and the
attendant of his children. Upon this occasion, he sent him privately
to Xerxes, commanding him to tell the king that Themistocles, the
admiral of the Athenians, having espoused his interest, wished to be
the first to inform him that the Greeks were ready to make their
escape, and that he counselled him to hinder their flight, to set upon
them while they were in this confusion and at a distance from their
land army, and hereby destroy all their forces by sea. Xerxes was very
joyful at this message, and received it as from one who wished him all
that was good, and immediately issued instructions to the commanders
of his ships, that they should instantly set out with two hundred
galleys to encompass all the islands, and enclose all the straits
and passages, that none of the Greeks might escape, and that they
should afterwards follow with the rest of their fleet at leisure. This
being done, Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, was the first man that
perceived it, and went to the tent of Themistocles, not out of any
friendship, for he had been formerly banished by his means, as has
been related, but to inform him how they were encompassed by their
enemies. Themistocles, knowing the generosity of Aristides, and much
struck by his visit at that time, imparted to him all that he had
transacted by Sicinnus, and entreated him that, as he would be more
readily believed among the Greeks, he would make use of his credit
to help to induce them to stay and fight their enemies in the narrow
seas. Aristides applauded Themistocles, and went to the other
commanders and captains of the galleys, and encouraged them to engage;
yet they did not perfectly assent to him, till a galley of Tenos,
which deserted from the Persians, of which Panaetius was commander,
came in, while they were still doubting, and confirmed the news that
all the straits and passages were beset; and then their rage and fury,
as well as their necessity, provoked them all to fight.
  As soon as it was day, Xerxes placed himself high up, to view his
fleet, and how it was set in order. Phanodemus says, he sat upon a
promontory above the temple of Hercules, where the coast of Attica
is separated from the island by a narrow channel; but Acestodorus
writes, that it was in the confines of Megara, upon those hills
which are called the Horns, where he sat in a chair of gold, with many
secretaries about him to write down all that was done in the fight.
  When Themistocles was about to sacrifice, close to the admiral's
galley, there were three prisoners brought to him, fine looking men,
and richly dressed in ornamented clothing and gold, said to be the
children of Artayctes and Sandauce, sister to Xerxes. As soon as the
prophet Euphrantides saw them, and observed that at the same time
the fire blazed out from the offerings with a more than ordinary
flame, and a man sneezed on the right, which was an intimation of a
fortunate event, he took Themistocles by the hand, and bade him
consecrate the three young men for sacrifice, and offer them up with
prayers for victory to Bacchus the Devourer; so should the Greeks
not only save themselves, but also obtain victory. Themistocles was
much disturbed at this strange and terrible prophecy, but the common
people, who in any difficult crisis and great exigency ever look for
relief rather to strange and extravagant than to reasonable means,
calling upon Bacchus with one voice, led the captives to the altar,
and compelled the execution of the sacrifice as the prophet had
commanded. This is reported by Phanias the Lesbian, a philosopher well
read in history.
  The number of the enemy's ships the poet Aeschylus gives in his
tragedy called the Persians, as on his certain knowledge, in the
following words:-

         "Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead
         One thousand ships; of more than usual speed
         Seven and two hundred. So it is agreed."

  The Athenians had a hundred and eighty; in every ship eighteen men
fought upon the deck, four of whom were archers and the rest men at
arms.
  As Themistocles had fixed upon the most advantageous place, so, with
no less sagacity, he chose the best time of fighting; for he would not
run the prows of his galleys against the Persians, nor begin the fight
till the time of day was come, when there regularly blows in a fresh
breeze from the open sea, and brings in with it a strong swell into
the channel; which was no inconvenience to the Greek ships, which were
low-built, and little above the water, but did much to hurt the
Persians, which had high sterns and lofty decks, and were heavy and
cumbrous in their movements as it presented them broadside to the
quick charges of the Greeks, who kept their eyes upon the motions of
Themistocles, as their best example, and more particularly because,
opposed to his ship, Ariamenes, admiral to Xerxes, a brave man and
by far the best and worthiest of the king's brothers, was seen
throwing darts and shooting arrows from his huge galley, as from the
walls of a castle. Aminias the Decelean and Sosicles the Pedian, who
sailed in the same vessel, upon the ships meeting stem to stem, and
transfixing each the other with their brazen prows, so that they
were fastened together, when Ariamenes attempted to board theirs,
ran at him with their pikes, and thrust him into the sea; his body, as
it floated amongst other shipwrecks, was known to Artemisia, and
carried to Xerxes.
  It is reported that, in the middle of the fight, a great flame
rose into the air above the city of Eleusis, and that sounds and
voices were heard through all the Thriasian plain, as far as the
sea, sounding like a number of men accompanying and escorting the
mystic Iacchus, and that a mist seemed to form and rise from the place
from whence the sounds came, and, passing forward, fell upon the
galleys. Others believed that they saw apparitions, in the shape of
armed men, reaching out their hands from the island of Aegina before
the Grecian galleys; and supposed they were the Aeacidae, whom they
had invoked to their aid before the battle. The first man that took
a ship was Lycomedes the Athenian, captain of the galley, who cut down
its ensign, and dedicated it to Apollo the Laurel-crowned. And as
the Persians fought in a narrow arm of the sea, and could bring but
part of their fleet to fight and fell foul of one another, the
Greeks thus equalled them in strength, and fought with them till the
evening forced them back, and obtained, as says Simonides, that
noble and famous victory, than which neither amongst the Greeks nor
barbarians was ever known more glorious exploit on the seas; by the
joint valour, indeed, and zeal of all who fought, but by the wisdom
and sagacity of Themistocles.
  After this sea-fight, Xerxes, enraged at his ill-fortune, attempted,
by casting great heaps of earth and stones into the sea, to stop up
the channel and make a dam, upon which he might lead his land-forces
over into the island of Salamis.
  Themistocles, being desirous to try the opinion of Aristides, told
him that he proposed to set sail for the Hellespont, to break the
bridge of ships so as to shut up, he said, Asia a prisoner within
Europe; but Aristides, disliking the design, said: "We have hitherto
fought with an enemy who has regarded little else but his pleasure and
luxury; but if we shut him up within Greece, and drive him to
necessity, he that is master of such great forces will no longer sit
quietly with an umbrella of gold over his head, looking upon the fight
for his pleasure; but in such a strait will attempt all things; he
will be resolute, and appear himself in person upon all occasions,
he will soon correct his errors, and supply what he has formerly
omitted through remissness, and will be better advised in all
things. Therefore, it is noways our interest, Themistocles," he
said, "to take away the bridge that is already made, but rather to
build another, if it were possible, that he might make his retreat
with the more expedition." To which Themistocles answered: "If this be
requisite, we must immediately use all diligence, art, and industry,
to rid ourselves of him as soon as may be;" and to this purpose he
found out among the captives one of the King of Persia's eunuchs,
named Arnaces, whom he sent to the king, to inform him that the
Greeks, being now victorious by sea, had decreed to sail to the
Hellespont, where the boats were fastened together, and destroy the
bridge; but that Themistocles, being concerned for the king,
revealed this to him, that he might hasten towards the Asiatic seas,
and pass over into his own dominions; and in the meantime would
cause delays and hinder the confederates from pursuing him. Xerxes
no sooner heard this, but, being very much terrified, he proceeded
to retreat out of Greece with all speed. The prudence of
Themistocles and Aristides in this was afterwards more fully
understood at the battle of Plataea, where Mardonius, with a very
small fraction of the forces of Xerxes, put the Greeks in danger of
losing all.
  Herodotus writes, that of all the cities of Greece, Aegina was
held to have performed the best service in the war; while all single
men yielded to Themistocles, though, out of envy, unwillingly; and
when they returned to the entrance of Peloponnesus, where the
several commanders delivered their suffrages at the altar, to
determine who was most worthy, every one gave the first vote for
himself and the second for Themistocles. The Lacedaemonians carried
him with them to Sparta, where, giving the rewards of valour to
Eurybiades, and of wisdom and conduct to Themistocles, they crowned
him with olive, presented him with the best chariot in the city, and
sent three hundred young men to accompany him to the confines of their
country. And at the next Olympic games, when Themistocles entered
the course, the spectators took no farther notice of those who were
contesting the prizes, but spent the whole day in looking upon him,
showing him to the strangers, admiring him, and applauding him by
clapping their hands, and other expressions of joy, so that he
himself, much gratified, confessed to his friends that he then
reaped the fruit of all his labours for the Greeks.
  He was, indeed, by nature, a great lover of honour, as is evident
from the anecdotes recorded of him. When chosen admiral by the
Athenians, he would not quite conclude any single matter of
business, either public or private, but deferred all till the day they
were to set sail, that, by despatching a great quantity of business
all at once, and having to meet a great variety of people, he might
make an appearance of greatness and power. Viewing the dead bodies
cast up by the sea, he perceived bracelets and necklaces of gold about
them, yet passed on, only showing them to a friend that followed
him, saying, "Take you these things, for you are not Themistocles." He
said to Antiphates, a handsome young man, who had formerly avoided,
but now in his glory courted him, "Time, young man, has taught us both
a lesson." He said that the Athenians did not honour him or admire
him, but made, as it were, a sort of plane-tree of him; sheltered
themselves under him in bad weather, and as soon as it was fine,
plucked his leaves and cut his branches. When the Seriphian told him
that he had not obtained this honour by himself, but by the
greatness of the city, he replied, "You speak truth; I should never
have been famous if I had been of Seriphus; nor you, had you been of
Athens." When another of the generals, who thought he had performed
considerable service for the Athenians, boastingly compared his action
with those of Themistocles, he told him that once upon a time the
Day after the Festival found fault with the Festival: "On you there is
nothing but hurry and trouble and preparation, but, when I come,
everybody sits down quietly and enjoys himself;" which the Festival
admitted was true, but "if I had not come first, you would not have
come at all." "Even so," he said, "if Themistocles had not come
before, where had you been now?" Laughing at his own son, who got
his mother, and, by his mother's means, his father also, to indulge
him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: "For
the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians,
your mother commands me, and you command your mother." Loving to be
singular in all things, when he had land to sell, he ordered the crier
to give notice that there were good neighbours near it. Of two who
made love to his daughter, he preferred the man of worth to the one
who was rich, saying he desired a man without riches, rather than
riches without a man. Such was the character of his sayings.
  After these things, he began to rebuild and fortify the city of
Athens, bribing, as Theopompus reports, the Lacedaemonian ephors not
to be against it, but, as most relate it, overreaching and deceiving
them. For, under the pretext of an embassy, he went to Sparta,
whereupon the Lacedaemonians' charging him with rebuilding the
walls, and Poliarchus coming on purpose from Aegina to denounce it, he
denied the fact, bidding them to send people to Athens to see
whether it were so or no; by which delay he got time for the
building of the wall, and also placed these ambassadors in the hands
of his countrymen as hostages for him; and so, when the Lacedaemonians
knew the truth, they did him no hurt, but, suppressing all display
of their anger for the present, sent him away.
  Next he proceeded to establish the harbour of Piraeus, observing the
great natural advantages of the locality, and desirous to unite the
whole city with the sea, and to reverse, in a manner, the policy of
ancient Athenian kings, who, endeavouring to withdraw their subjects
from the sea, and to accustom them to live, not by sailing about,
but by planting and tilling the earth, spread the story of the dispute
between Minerva and Neptune for the sovereignty of Athens, in which
Minerva, by producing to the judges an olive-tree, was declared to
have won; whereas Themistocles did not only knead up, as
Aristophanes says, the port and the city into one, but made the city
absolutely the dependant and the adjunct of the port, and the land
of the sea, which increased the power and confidence of the people
against the nobility; the authority coming into the hands of sailors
and boatswains and pilots. Thus it was one of the orders of the thirty
tyrants, that the hustings in the assembly, which had faced towards
the sea, should be turned round towards the land; implying their
opinion that the empire by sea had been the origin of the democracy,
and that the farming population were not so much opposed to oligarchy.
  Themistocles, however, formed yet higher designs with a view to
naval supremacy. For, after the departure of Xerxes, when the
Grecian fleet was arrived at Pagasae, where they wintered,
Themistocles, in a public oration to the people of Athens, told them
that he had a design to perform something that would tend greatly to
their interests and safety, but was of such a nature that it could not
be made generally public. The Athenians ordered him to impart it to
Aristides only; and, if he approved of it, to put it in practice.
And when Themistocles had discovered to him that his design was to
burn the Grecian fleet in the haven of Pagasae, Aristides coming out
to the people, gave this report of the stratagem contrived by
Themistocles, that no proposal could be more politic, or more
dishonourable; on which the Athenians commanded Themistocles to
think no farther of it.
  When the Lacedaemonians proposed, at the general council of the
Amphictyonians, that the representatives of those cities which were
not in the league, nor had fought against the Persians, should be
excluded, Themistocles, fearing that the Thessalians, with those of
Thebes, Argos, and others, being thrown out of the council, the
Lacedaemonians would become wholly masters of the votes, and do what
they pleased, supported the deputies of the cities, and prevailed with
the members then sitting to alter their opinion on this point, showing
them that there were but one-and-thirty cities which had partaken in
the war, and that most of these, also, were very small; how
intolerable would it be, if the rest of Greece should be excluded, and
the general council should come to be ruled by two or three great
cities. By this, chiefly, he incurred the displeasure of the
Lacedaemonians, whose honours and favours were now shown to Cimon,
with a view to making him the opponent of the state policy of
Themistocles.
  He was also burdensome to the confederates, sailing about the
islands and collecting money from them. Herodotus says, that,
requiring money of those of the island of Andros, he told them that he
had brought with him two goddesses, Persuasion and Force; and they
answered him that they had also two great goddesses, which
prohibited them from giving him any money, Poverty and
Impossibility. Timocreon, the Rhodian poet, reprehends him somewhat
bitterly for being wrought upon by money to let some who were banished
return, while abandoning himself, who was his guest and friend. The
verses are these:-

  "Pausanias you may praise, and Xanthippus, he be for,
  For Leutychidas, a third; Aristides, I proclaim,
  From the sacred Athens came.
  The one true man of all; for Themistocles Latona doth abhor,
  The liar, traitor, cheat, who to gain his filthy pay,
  Timocreon, his friend, neglected to restore
    To his native Rhodian shore;
  Three silver talents took and departed (curses with him) on his
    way,
  Restoring people here, expelling there, and killing here,
  Filling evermore his purse: and at the Isthmus gave a treat,
  To be laughed at, of cold meat,
  Which they ate, and prayed the gods some one else might
    give the feast another year."

But after the sentence and banishment of Themistocles, Timocreon
reviles him yet more immoderately and wildly in a poem that begins
thus:-

         "Unto all the Greeks repair,
         O Muse, and tell these verses there,
         As is fitting and is fair."

The story is, that it was put to the question whether Timocreon should
be banished for siding with the Persians, and Themistocles gave his
vote against him. So when Themistocles was accused of intriguing
with the Medes, Timocreon made these lines upon him:-

    "So now Timocreon, indeed, is not the sole friend of the Mede,
     There are some knaves besides; nor is it only mine that fails,
     But other foxes have lost tails.-"

When the citizens of Athens began to listen willingly to those who
traduced and reproached him, he was forced, with somewhat obnoxious
frequency, to put them in mind of the great services he had performed,
and ask those who were offended with him whether they were weary
with receiving benefits often from the same person, so rendering
himself more odious. And he yet more provoked the people by building a
temple to Diana with the epithet of Aristobule, or Diana of Best
Counsel; intimating thereby, that he had given the best counsel, not
only to the Athenians, but to all Greece. He built this temple near
his own house, in the district called Melite, where now the public
officers carry out the bodies of such as are executed, and throw the
halters and clothes of those that are strangled or otherwise put to
death. There is to this day a small figure of Themistocles in the
temple of Diana of Best Counsel, which represents him to be a person
not only of a noble mind, but also of a most heroic aspect. At
length the Athenians banished him, making use of the ostracism to
humble his eminence and authority, as they ordinarily did with all
whom they thought too powerful, or, by their greatness,
disproportional to the equality thought requisite in a popular
government. For the ostracism was instituted, not so much to punish
the offender, as to mitigate and pacify the violence of the envious,
who delighted to humble eminent men, and who, by fixing this
disgrace upon them, might vent some part of their rancour.
  Themistocles being banished from Athens, while he stayed at Argos
the detection of Pausanias happened, which gave such advantage to
his enemies, that Leobotes of Agraule, son of Alcmaeon, indicted him
of treason, the Spartans supporting him in the accusation.
  When Pausanias went about this treasonable design, he concealed it
at first from Themistocles, though he were his intimate friend; but
when he saw him expelled out of the commonwealth, and how
impatiently he took his banishment, he ventured to communicate it to
him, and desired his assistance, showing him the king of Persia's
letters, and exasperating him against the Greeks, as a villainous,
ungrateful people. However, Themistocles immediately rejected the
proposals of Pausanias, and wholly refused to be a party in the
enterprise, though he never revealed his communications, nor disclosed
the conspiracy to any man, either hoping that Pausanias would desist
from his intentions, or expecting that so inconsiderate an attempt
after such chimerical objects would be discovered by other means.
  After that Pausanias was put to death, letters and writings being
found concerning this matter, which rendered Themistocles suspected,
the Lacedaemonians were clamorous against him, and his enemies among
the Athenians accused him; when, being absent from Athens, he made his
defence by letters, especially against the points that had been
previously alleged against him. In answer to the malicious detractions
of his enemies, he merely wrote to the citizens, urging that he who
was always ambitious to govern, and not of a character or a
disposition to serve, would never sell himself and his country into
slavery to a barbarous and hostile nation.
  Notwithstanding this, the people, being persuaded by his accusers,
sent officers to take him and bring him away to be tried before a
council of the Greeks, but, having timely notice of it, he passed over
into the island of Corcyra, where the state was under obligations to
him; for, being chosen as arbitrator in a difference between them
and the Corinthians, he decided the controversy by ordering the
Corinthians to pay down twenty talents, and declaring the town and
island of Leucas a joint colony from both cities. From thence he
fled into Epirus, and, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians still pursuing
him, he threw himself upon chances of safety that seemed all but
desperate. For he fled for refuge to Admetus, king of the
Molossians, who had formerly made some request to the Athenians,
when Themistocles was in the height of his authority, and had been
disdainfully used and insulted by him, and had let it appear plain
enough, that, could he lay hold of him, he would take his revenge. Yet
in this misfortune Themistocles, fearing the recent hatred of his
neighbours and fellow-citizens more than the old displeasure of the
king, put himself at his mercy and became an humble suppliant to
Admetus, after a peculiar manner different from the custom of other
countries. For taking the king's son, who was then a child, in his
arms, he laid himself down at his hearth, this being the most sacred
and only manner of supplication among the Molossians, which was not to
be refused. And some say that his wife, Phthia, intimated to
Themistocles this way of petitioning, and placed her young son with
him before the hearth; others, that king Admetus, that he might be
under a religious obligation not to deliver him up to his pursuers,
prepared and enacted with him a sort of stage-play to this effect.
At this time Epicrates of Acharnae privately conveyed his wife and
children out of Athens, and sent them hither, for which afterwards
Cimon condemned him and put him to death; as Stesimbrotus reports, and
yet somehow, either forgetting this himself, or making Themistocles to
be little mindful of it, says presently that he sailed into Sicily,
and desired in marriage the daughter of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse,
promising to bring the Greeks under his power; and, on Hiero
refusing him, departed thence into Asia; but this is not probable.
  For Theophrastus writes, in his work on Monarchy, that when Hiero
sent race-horses to the Olympian games, and erected a pavilion
sumptuously furnished, Themistocles made an oration to the Greeks,
inciting them to pull down the tyrant's tent, and not to suffer his
horses to run. Thucydides says, that, passing overland to the
Aegaean Sea, he took ship at Pydna in the bay Therme, not being
known to any one in the ship, till, being terrified to see the
vessel driven by the winds near to Naxos, which was then besieged by
the Athenians, he made himself known to the master and pilot, and
partly entreating them, partly threatening that if they went on
shore he would accuse them, and make the Athenians to believe that
they did not take him in out of ignorance, but that he had corrupted
them with money from the beginning, he compelled them to bear off
and stand out to sea, and sail forward towards the coast of Asia.
  A great part of his estate was privately conveyed away by his
friends, and sent after him by sea into Asia; besides which, there was
discovered and confiscated to the value of fourscore talents, as
Theophrastus writes; Theopompus says an hundred; though Themistocles
was never worth three talents before he was concerned in public
affairs.
  When he arrived at Cyme, and understood that all along the coast
there were many laid wait for him, and particularly Ergoteles and
Pythodorus (for the game was worth the hunting for such as were
thankful to make money by any means, the king of Persia having offered
by public proclamation two hundred talents to him that should take
him), he fled to Aegae, a small city of the Aeolians, where no one
knew him but only his host Nicogenes, who was the richest man in
Aeolia, and well known to the great men of Inner Asia. While
Themistocles lay bid for some days in his house, one night, after a
sacrifice and supper ensuing, Olbius, the attendant upon Nicogenes's
children, fell into a sort of frenzy and fit of inspiration, and cried
out in verse-

         "Night shall speak, and night instruct thee,
         By the voice of night conduct thee."

After this, Themistocles, going to bed, dreamed that he saw a snake
coil itself up upon his belly, and so creep to his neck; then, as soon
as it touched his face, it turned into an eagle, which spread its
wings over him, and took him up and flew away with him a great
distance; then there appeared a herald's golden wand, and upon this at
last it set him down securely, after infinite terror and disturbance.
  His departure was effected by Nicogenes by the following artifice:
The barbarous nations, and amongst them the Persians especially, are
extremely jealous, severe, and suspicious about their women, not
only their wives, but also their bought slaves and concubines, whom
they keep so strictly that no one ever sees them abroad; they spend
their lives shut up within doors, and, when they take a journey, are
carried in close tents, curtained in on all sides, and set upon a
wagon. Such a travelling carriage being prepared for Themistocles,
they hid him in it, and carried him on his journey, and told those
whom they met or spoke with upon the road that they were conveying a
young Greek woman out of Ionia to a nobleman at court.
  Thucydides and Charon of Lampsacus say that Xerxes was dead, and
that Themistocles had an interview with his son; but Ephorus, Dinon,
Clitarchus, Heraclides, and many others, write that he came to Xerxes.
The chronological tables better agree with the account of
Thucydides, and yet neither can their statements be said to be quite
set at rest.
  When Themistocles was come to the critical point, he applied himself
first to Artabanus, commander of a thousand men, telling him that he
was a Greek, and desired to speak with the king about important
affairs concerning which the king was extremely solicitous.
Artabanus answered him: "O stranger, the laws of men are different,
and one thing is honourable to one man, and to others another; but
it is honourable for all to honour and observe their own laws. It is
the habit of the Greeks, we are told, to honour, above all things,
liberty and equality; but amongst our many excellent laws, we
account this the most excellent, to honour the king, and to worship
him, as the image of the great preserver of the universe; if, then,
you shall consent to our laws, and fall down before the king and
worship him, you may both see him and speak to him; but if your mind
be otherwise, you must make use of others to intercede for you, for it
is not the national custom here for the king to give audience to any
one that doth not fall down before him." Themistocles, hearing this,
replied: "Artabanus, I, that come hither to increase the power and
glory of the king, will not only submit myself to his laws, since so
it hath pleased the god who exalteth the Persian empire to this
greatness, but will also cause many more to be worshippers and adorers
of the king. Let not this, therefore, be an impediment why I should
not communicate to the king what I have to impart." Artabanus asking
him, "Who must we tell him that you are? for your words signify you to
be no ordinary person." Themistocles answered, "No man, O Artabanus,
must be informed of this before the king himself." Thus Phanias
relates; to which Eratosthenes, in his treatise on Riches, adds,
that it was by the means of a woman of Eretria, who was kept by
Artabanus, that he obtained this audience and interview with him.
  When he was introduced to the king, and had paid his reverence to
him, he stood silent, till the king commanding the interpreter to
ask him who he was, he replied, "O king, I am Themistocles the
Athenian, driven into banishment by the Greeks. The evils that I
have done to the Persians are numerous; but my benefits to them yet
greater, in withholding the Greeks from pursuit, so soon as the
deliverance of my own country allowed me to show kindness also to you.
I come with a mind suited to my present calamities; prepared alike for
favours and for anger; to welcome your gracious reconciliation, and to
deprecate your wrath. Take my own countrymen for witnesses of the
services I have done for Persia, and make use of this occasion to show
the world your virtue, rather than to satisfy your indignation. If you
save me, you will save your suppliant; if otherwise, will destroy an
enemy of the Greeks." He talked also of divine admonitions, such as
the vision which he saw at Nicogenes's house, and the direction
given him by the oracle of Dodona, where Jupiter commanded him to go
to him that had a name like his, by which he understood that he was
sent from Jupiter to him, seeing that they both were great, and had
the name of kings.
  The king heard him attentively, and, though he admired his temper
and courage, gave him no answer at that time; but, when he was with
his intimate friends, rejoiced in his great good fortune, and esteemed
himself very happy in this, and prayed to his god Arimanius, that
all his enemies might be ever of the same mind with the Greeks, to
abuse and expel the bravest men amongst them. Then he sacrificed to
the gods, and presently fell to drinking, and was so well pleased,
that in the night, in the middle of his sleep, he cried out for joy
three times, "I have Themistocles the Athenian."
  In the morning, calling together the chief of his court, he had
Themistocles brought before him, who expected no good of it, when he
saw, for example, the guards fiercely set against him as soon as
they learnt his name, and giving him ill language. As he came
forward towards the king, who was seated, the rest keeping silence,
passing by Roxanes, a commander of a thousand men, he heard him,
with a slight groan, say, without stirring out of his place, "You
subtle Greek serpent, the king's good genius hath brought thee
thither." Yet, when he came into the presence, and again fell down,
the king saluted him, and spake to him kindly, telling him he was
now indebted to him two hundred talents; for it was just and
reasonable that he should receive the reward which was proposed to
whosoever should bring Themistocles; and promising much more, and
encouraging him, he commanded him to speak freely what he would
concerning the affairs of Greece. Themistocles replied, that a man's
discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and
patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out;
when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscure and lost; and,
therefore, he desired time. The king being pleased with the
comparison, and bidding him take what time he would, he desired a
year; in which time, having learnt the Persian language
sufficiently, he spoke with the king by himself without the help of an
interpreter, it being supposed that he discoursed only about the
affairs of Greece; but there happening, at the same time, great
alterations at court, and removals of the king's favourites, he drew
upon himself the envy of the great people, who imagined that he had
taken the boldness to speak concerning them. For the favours shown
to other strangers were nothing in comparison with the honours
conferred on him; the king invited him to partake of his own
pastimes and recreations both at home and abroad, carrying him with
him a-hunting, and made him his intimate so far that he permitted
him to see the queen-mother, and converse frequently with her. By
the king's command, he also was made acquainted with the Magian
learning.
  When Demaratus the Lacedaemonian, being ordered by the king to ask
whatsoever he pleased, that it should immediately be granted him,
desired that he might make his public entrance, and be carried in
state through the city of Sardis, with the tiara set in the royal
manner upon his head, Mithropaustes, cousin to the king, touched him
on the head, and told him that he had no brains for the royal tiara to
cover, and if Jupiter should give him his lightning and thunder, he
would not any the more be Jupiter for that; the king also repulsed him
with anger, resolving never to be reconciled to him, but to be
inexorable to all supplications on his behalf. Yet Themistocles
pacified him, and prevailed with him to forgive him. And it is
reported that the succeeding kings, in whose reigns there was a
greater communication between the Greeks and Persians, when they
invited any considerable Greek into their service, to encourage him,
would write, and promise him that he should be as great with them as
Themistocles had been. They relate, also, how Themistocles, when he
was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself
splendidly served at his table, turned to his children and said,
"Children, we had been undone if we had not been undone." Most writers
say that he had three cities given him, Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus,
to maintain him in bread, meat, and wine. Neanthes of Cyzicus, and
Phanias, add two more, the city of Palaescepsis, to provide him with
clothes, and Percote, with bedding and furniture for his house.
  As he was going down towards the sea-coast to take measures
against Greece, a Persian whose name was Epixyes, governor of the
upper Phrygia, laid wait to kill him, having for that purpose provided
a long time before a number of Pisidians, who were to set upon him
when he should stop to rest at a city that is called Lion's-head.
But Themistocles, sleeping in the middle of the day, saw the Mother of
the gods appear to him in a dream and say unto him, "Themistocles,
keep back from the Lion's-head, for fear you fall into the lion's
jaws; for this advice I expect that your daughter Mnesiptolema
should be my servant." Themistocles was much astonished, and when he
had made his vows to the goddess, left the broad road, and, making a
circuit, went another way, changing his intended station to avoid that
place, and at night took up his rest in the fields. But one of the
sumpter-horses, which carried the furniture for his tent, having
fallen that day into the river, his servants spread out the
tapestry, which was wet, and hung it up to dry; in the meantime the
Pisidians made towards them with their swords drawn, and, not
discerning exactly by the moon what it was that was stretched out,
thought it to be the tent of Themistocles, and that they should find
him resting himself within it; but when they came near, and lifted
up the hangings, those who watched there fell upon them and took them.
Themistocles, having escaped this great danger, in admiration of the
goodness of the goddess that appeared to him, built, in memory of
it, a temple in the city of Magnesia, which is dedicated to Dindymene,
Mother of the gods, in which he consecrated and devoted his daughter
Mnesiptolema to her service.
  When he came to Sardis, he visited the temples of the gods, and
observing, at his leisure, their buildings, ornaments, and the
number of their offerings, he saw in the temple of the Mother of the
gods the statue of a virgin in brass, two cubits high, called the
water-bringer. Themistocles had caused this to be made and set up when
he was surveyor of the waters at Athens out of the fines of those whom
he detected in drawing off and diverting the public water by pipes for
their private use; and whether he had some regret to see this image in
captivity, or was desirous to let the Athenians see in what great
credit and authority he was with the king, he entered into a treaty
with the governor to persuade him to send this statue back to Athens,
which so enraged the Persian officer, that he told him he would write
the king word of it. Themistocles, being affrighted hereat, got
access to his wives and concubines, by presents of money to whom he
appeased the fury of the governor; and afterwards behaved with more
reserve and circumspection, fearing the envy of the Persians, and
did not, as Theopompus writes, continue to travel about Asia, but
lived quietly in his own house in Magnesia, where for a long time he
passed his days in great security, being courted by all, and enjoying
rich presents, and honoured equally with the greatest persons in the
Persian empire; the king, at that time, not minding his concerns with
Greece, being taken up with the affairs of inner Asia.
  But when Egypt revolted, being assisted by the Athenians, and the
Greek galleys roved about as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Cimon
had made himself master of the seas, the king turned his thoughts
thither, and, bending his mind chiefly to resist the Greeks, and to
check the growth of their power against him, began to raise forces,
and send out commanders, and to despatch messengers to Themistocles at
Magnesia, to put him in mind of his promise, and to summon him to
act against the Greeks. Yet this did not increase his hatred nor
exasperate him against the Athenians, neither was he in any way
elevated with the thoughts of the honour and powerful command he was
to have in this war; but judging, perhaps, that the object would not
be attained, the Greeks having at that time, beside other great
commanders, Cimon, in particular, who was gaining wonderful military
successes; but chiefly being ashamed to sully the glory of his
former great actions, and of his many victories and trophies, he
determined to put a conclusion to his life, agreeable to its
previous course. He sacrificed to the gods, and invited his friends;
and, having entertained them and shaken hands with them, drank
bull's blood, as is the usual story; as others state, a poison
producing instant death; and ended his days in the city of Magnesia,
having lived sixty-five years, most of which he had spent in
politics and in wars, in government and command. The king being
informed of the cause and manner of his death, admired him more than
ever, and continued to show kindness to his friends and relations.
  Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of
Alopece,- Archeptolis, Poleuctus, and Cleophantus. Plato, the
philosopher, mentions the last as a most excellent horseman, but
otherwise insignificant person; of two sons yet older than these,
Neocles and Diocles, Neocles died when he was young by the bite of a
horse, and Diocles was adopted by his grandfather, Lysander. He had
many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second
marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother;
Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island of Chios; Sybaris to
Nicomedes the Athenian. After the death of Themistocles, his nephew,
Phrasicles, went to Magnesia, and married, with her brothers' consent,
another daughter, Nicomache, and took charge of her sister Asia, the
youngest of all the children.
  The Magnesians possess a splendid sepulchre of Themistocles,
placed in the middle of their market-place. It is not worth while
taking notice of what Andocides states in his address to his Friends
concerning his remains, how the Athenian robbed his tomb, and threw
his ashes into the air; for he feigns this, to exasperate the
oligarchical faction against the people; and there is no man living
but knows that Phylarchus simply invents in his history, where he all
but uses an actual stage machine, and brings in Neocles and Demopolis
as the sons of Themistocles, to incite or move compassion, as if he
were writing a tragedy. Diodorus the cosmographer says, in his work
on Tombs, but by conjecture rather than of certain knowledge, that
near to the haven of Piraeus where the land runs out like an elbow
from the promontory of Alcimus, when you have doubled the cape and
passed inward where the sea is always calm, there is a large piece of
masonry, and upon this the Tomb of Themistocles, in the shape of an
altar; and Plato the comedian confirms this, he believes, in these
verses:-

         "Thy tomb is fairly placed upon the strand,
         Where merchants still shall greet it with the land;
         Still in and out 'twill see them come and go,
         And watch the galleys as they race below."

  Various honours also and privileges were granted to the kindred of
Themistocles at Magnesia, which were observed down to our times, and
were enjoyed by another Themistocles of Athens, with whom I had an
intimate acquaintance and friendship in the house of Ammonius the
philosopher.
                              THE END