Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
As for Themistocles, his lineage did little to enhance his reputation: his father was Neocles, a man not especially prominent at Athens, of the deme Phrearrii, of the tribe Leontis; and on his mother's side he was illegitimate, as they say — his mother was Abrotonon, a Thracian woman by birth. But I say it was to the Greeks that Themistocles the great was born. Athenaeus 13.576.
Phanias, however, gives a different account: he writes that Themistocles' mother came not from Thrace but from Caria, and that her true name was Euterpe rather than Abrotonon; Neanthes further adds that her home city in Caria was Halicarnassus. For this reason — since illegitimate sons were assigned to the Cynosarges (a gymnasium of Heracles outside the gates, since that god too was not legitimate among the gods, but was tainted with illegitimacy because his mother was mortal) — Themistocles used to persuade some of the well-born young men to go down to the Cynosarges and exercise with him there. And by doing this he seems, by a clever stroke, to have done away with the distinction between the illegitimate and the legitimate.
That he did share in the clan of the Lycomidae is clear: for the initiation-hall at Phlya, which belonged in common to the Lycomidae, when it was burned by the barbarians, he himself had it repaired and adorned with paintings, as Simonides has recorded.
Even as a boy he is agreed to have been full of impulse, by nature intelligent, but in his ambitions given to great undertakings and to political life. For in the free time and leisure that came after his lessons, he did not play or idle as the other boys did, but was found rehearsing and composing speeches to himself. And the speeches were either an accusation or a defense of one of the boys.
Hence his teacher used to say to him, "You will be nothing small, my boy, but altogether something great, either for good or for ill." For indeed, of the branches of education aimed at forming character, or pursued for some pleasure and a gentleman's grace, he learned them reluctantly and without eagerness; but in those said to conduce to intelligence or to action he was plainly, beyond his years, contemptuous of the rest, as one who trusted in his own nature.
Hence later, in the free and witty gatherings, as they are called, of those who were reputed to be well educated, when he was mocked he was forced to defend himself rather crudely, saying that he did not know how to tune a lyre or handle a harp, but that, taking over a city that was small and without repute, he could render it renowned and powerful. Stesimbrotus, however, claims that Themistocles attended the lectures of Anaxagoras and studied under the natural philosopher Melissus — not getting his dates right; for it was with Pericles, who was much younger than Themistocles, that Melissus was opposed as a general when he besieged the Samians, and it was with Pericles that Anaxagoras spent his time.
One might rather give heed to those who say that Themistocles became a devoted follower of Mnesiphilus of Phrearrii, a man who was neither an orator nor one of those called natural philosophers, but who had made a practice of what was then called "wisdom," being in fact political shrewdness and practical intelligence, and who preserved it as a kind of school handed down in succession from Solon — a school which those who came after mixed with the arts of the law-courts and transferred from practical affairs to mere rhetoric, and were called sophists. It was with this man, then, that Themistocles associated when he had already entered public life.
In the first impulses of his youth he was uneven and unsteady, since he was following his nature by itself, without reason or education, which by itself produces great swings in both directions in one's pursuits, and often turns toward the worse — as he himself later admitted, saying that the roughest colts turn out the best horses, when they get the training and discipline that is fitting for them.
Some have attached invented stories to this period — that his father cast him off, and that grief over her son's shame drove his mother to take her own life — but these tales appear to be untrue; and there are, on the contrary, those who say that his father, trying to turn him away from public affairs, pointed out to him by the sea the old triremes cast up and neglected, implying that the people treat their popular leaders the same way, once they are seen to be of no more use.
Yet public affairs seem to have taken hold of Themistocles quickly and vigorously, and his impulse toward glory to have mastered him entirely. For this reason, right from the start, eager to hold first place, he boldly took on the hostility of those who were powerful and preeminent in the city, and especially of Aristides son of Lysimachus, who always took the opposite course from him. And yet it seems that the enmity toward this man had an altogether boyish origin: for both fell in love with the beautiful Stesilaus, a Cean by birth, as Ariston the philosopher has recorded.
From this they continued at odds also in public affairs. Yet the dissimilarity of their lives and characters seems to have increased the difference between them. For Aristides, being by nature gentle and of an honorable character, and conducting his politics not for favor or for glory but from what was best, with safety and justice, was forced often to oppose Themistocles, who was stirring up the people to much and introducing great innovations, standing in the way of his advancement.
For it is said that he was so carried away by his love of glory and, out of ambition, so passionate a lover of great deeds, that while still a young man, after the battle against the barbarians at Marathon had taken place and the generalship of Miltiades was being talked of everywhere, he was seen deep in thought by himself much of the time, and lay awake at night, and declined the drinking parties he used to attend,
and to those who questioned and wondered at this change in his habits, he would answer that Miltiades' trophy robbed him of his sleep. For where others supposed that the rout of the barbarians at Marathon had brought the war to a close, Themistocles judged it merely the opening round of far larger conflicts still to come, for which he was training himself on behalf of the whole of Greece, and preparing the city, still looking far ahead to what was to come.
And first, as to the revenue from the silver mines at Laurium, which the Athenians were accustomed to distribute among themselves, he alone dared to come forward before the people and say that they should give up the distribution and, with that money, build triremes for the war against the Aeginetans. For that war was then at its height in Greece, and the islanders controlled the sea with the number of their ships.
And so Themistocles the more easily persuaded them, not by raising the specter of Darius or the Persians (for these were far away and inspired no very sure fear that they would come), but by making timely use of the citizens' anger and rivalry toward the Aeginetans for his preparations. For a hundred triremes were built from that money, with which they also fought at sea against Xerxes.
From this point, little by little leading and drawing the city down toward the sea, on the ground that by land they were not even a match for their neighbors, but by the strength of their ships they could both ward off the barbarians and rule Greece, he made the Athenians, instead of steady hoplites, as Plato says, sailors and men of the sea, and brought a reproach upon himself, namely that Themistocles, by taking away spear and shield from the citizens, had reduced the Athenian people to the rowing-bench and the oar. And he did this by overpowering Miltiades, who spoke against it, as Stesimbrotus records.
Now whether he damaged the strictness and purity of the constitution, or not, by doing this, let that be a question for a more philosophical inquiry to consider; but that at that time salvation for the Greeks came from the sea, and that those triremes raised up the city of Athens again, Xerxes himself, among other things, bore witness. For while his land forces remained unbroken, he fled after the defeat of his ships, as no longer a match for them, and left Mardonius behind, in my judgment, more to hinder the Greeks from pursuit than with any thought of enslaving them.
That he became an intense money-maker, some say was due to generosity: for being fond of sacrifices and lavish in his expenditures on entertaining foreigners, he needed an ungrudging supply of funds; while others, on the contrary, accuse him of a great deal of stinginess and pettiness, saying that he even used to sell off the food that was sent to him as gifts.
When Philides the horse-breeder, being asked by him for a colt, did not give it, he threatened that he would quickly turn his house into a wooden horse, hinting that he would stir up charges and lawsuits against the man from certain of his own relatives. In love of honor he surpassed everyone, so that while still young and unknown he pressed Epicles of Hermione, the lyre-player who was in demand among the Athenians, to practice at his house, being eager that many should seek out his house and resort to him.
When he went to Olympia and vied with Cimon over dinners and tents and the rest of his splendor and display, he did not please the Greeks. For in Cimon's case, being young and from a great house, they thought it right to allow such things; but Themistocles, not yet being well known, but seeming to be raising himself up from nothing and beyond his worth, incurred a charge of pretension.
He also won a victory as a producer of tragedies, at a time when that contest already had great seriousness and rivalry attached to it, and he set up a tablet commemorating the victory with this inscription: "Themistocles of Phrearrii was producer, Phrynichus was the trainer, Adeimantus was archon." Nevertheless he made himself agreeable to the many, both by addressing each of the citizens by name from memory, and by offering himself as a reliable arbitrator in matters of contract, so that he even said to Simonides of Ceos, when the latter asked something excessive of him while he was general, that Simonides would not be a good poet if he sang out of tune, nor would he himself be a decent ruler if he showed favors contrary to the law.
And again on another occasion, mocking Simonides, he said the man had no sense, since he reviled the Corinthians though they lived in a great city, while having images made of himself, though he was so ugly to look at. As he grew in power and pleased the many, he finally formed a faction against Aristides and had him ostracized and removed.
Now when the Mede was already coming down upon Greece and the Athenians were deliberating about a general, the others, they say, willingly withdrew from the generalship, terrified at the danger, but Epicydes, whose father was Euphemides, a demagogue skilled in speech yet weak-willed and open to bribery, was eager for the command and was expected to win it by the vote. Themistocles, fearing that affairs would be utterly ruined if the leadership fell to that man, bought off his ambition with money from Epicydes.
He is also praised for his action concerning the bilingual interpreter, in the matter of those sent by the King to demand earth and water. For having seized the interpreter, he had him put to death by decree, because he had dared to use the Greek tongue in the service of barbarian commands.
There is also the matter of Arthmius of Zelea: for when Themistocles proposed it, they inscribed him too, along with his children and his family, among the disenfranchised, because he had brought Median gold to the Greeks. Yet of all his accomplishments none surpassed his bringing the wars among the Greeks to a close and restoring the cities to concord with each other, persuading them to put off their hostilities on account of the war; and in this they say Chileos the Arcadian worked together with him most of all.
Having taken up his command, he immediately set about putting the citizens aboard the triremes, and tried to persuade the city to abandon it and meet the barbarian by sea as far as possible from Greece. When many opposed this, he led out a large force to Tempe together with the Lacedaemonians, so as to fight there in defense of Thessaly, which was not yet thought to be siding with the Medes,
but when they withdrew from there without having accomplished anything, and the Thessalians, having gone over to the king, along with the territory up to Boeotia, had medized, the Athenians now paid more heed to Themistocles concerning the sea, and he was sent with ships to Artemisium to guard the straits. There, when the Greeks bade Eurybiades and the Lacedaemonians take the lead, but the Athenians, because in number of ships they surpassed all the others together, thought it unworthy to follow others,
Themistocles, perceiving the danger, himself yielded the command to Eurybiades and calmed the Athenians, promising that if they proved good men in the war, he would see to it that the Greeks would afterward willingly obey them. For this reason he seems to have been most responsible for the salvation of Greece, and above all to have advanced the Athenians to glory, as men who prevailed over their enemies by courage and over their allies by good sense.
When the barbarian fleet had reached Aphetae, Eurybiades was alarmed at the number of ships facing him, and on learning that another two hundred were sailing around Sciathos, he wished to withdraw as quickly as possible into the interior of Greece, to reach the Peloponnese and join the fleet to the land army, considering the king's naval strength altogether unbeatable. The Euboeans, fearing that the Greeks would abandon them, secretly conferred with Themistocles, sending Pelagon to him with a large sum of money.
Themistocles took this money, as Herodotus has recorded, and gave it to Eurybiades and his circle. Since Architeles, the trierarch of the sacred ship, opposed him most strongly among his countrymen — for lacking funds to pay his crew he was eager to sail away — Themistocles further incited the crews of the triremes against him, so that they ran together and seized his dinner.
When Architeles was despondent over this and taking it hard, Themistocles sent to him in a chest a dinner of bread and meat, with a talent of silver placed beneath, and told him to dine for the present and to look after his crew the next day; otherwise he would denounce him to the men present as one who had taken silver from the enemy. This account comes from Phanias of Lesbos.
The battles that then took place against the barbarian ships in the straits produced no great decision for the whole war, but by the experience of them they benefited the Greeks enormously, for they were taught by their actions amid the dangers that neither numbers of ships nor the adornment and splendor of figureheads, nor boastful shouts or barbarian war-cries, strike fear into men willing to close the distance and risk hand-to-hand combat; rather, one should hold such things in contempt and press directly against the enemy's own bodies, grappling and fighting it out against them.
This is indeed what Pindar seems to have understood well when he said of the battle at Artemisium: 'where the sons of the Athenians laid the shining foundation of freedom' (Bergk, fr. 77). For truly the beginning of victory is courage. Artemisium is a stretch of Euboea beyond Hestiaea, a shore facing north, and opposite it lies, more or less, the region that was once under Philoctetes, Olizon. It has a temple, not large, of Artemis surnamed 'of the Dawn,' and trees grow around it, and pillars of white stone stand in a circle; the stone, when rubbed with the hand, gives off a color and smell like saffron.
On one of the pillars this elegiac verse was inscribed: 'Of men of every race from the land of Asia, the sons of the Athenians once, in a sea-battle in these waters, having overcome them, when the army of the Medes had perished, set up these markers to the maiden Artemis' (Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. 44, p. 480). A place is also shown on the shore where, amid the great surrounding sand, ashen and black dust rises from below, as if from a place burnt by fire, in which they think the wrecks and the dead were burned.
When those at Thermopylae reported to the fleet at Artemisium that they had learned Leonidas had fallen and that Xerxes was master of the land routes, they withdrew into the interior of Greece, the Athenians being posted last in the line on account of their valor and taking great pride in what they had accomplished. As Themistocles sailed along the coast, wherever he saw harbors necessary for landing and refuge available to the enemy, he carved conspicuous inscriptions on the stones,
some he found already suitable by chance, others he himself set up near the anchorages and watering places, urging the Ionians through these inscriptions, if possible, to change sides toward them, since they were their fathers and were risking their lives for the Ionians' freedom; but if not, at least to harm the barbarian forces in battle and throw them into confusion. He hoped by this either to win the Ionians over or to unsettle them, making them objects of suspicion to the barbarians.
When Xerxes invaded Phocis from above through Doris and was burning the towns of the Phocians, the Greeks did not come to their defense, although the Athenians begged them to meet the enemy in Boeotia before reaching Attica, just as they themselves had gone by sea to help at Artemisium. But no one listened to them; instead the Greeks clung to the Peloponnese and were eager to gather all their forces within the Isthmus, and were building a wall across the Isthmus from sea to sea,
and at once anger at this betrayal seized the Athenians, and at the same time despondency and gloom, since they found themselves abandoned. They had no intention of fighting so many myriads of troops; and the one thing that was now necessary — to give up the city and cling to their ships — most of them heard with dismay, feeling that they wanted no victory and knew no safety if it meant abandoning the temples of the gods and the graves of their fathers.
At this point Themistocles, unable to win over the multitude by human reasoning, brought forward, as in a tragedy, a divine device — signs and oracles. As a sign he took the matter of the sacred serpent, which in those days seemed to have vanished from its precinct; and when the priests found the daily offerings set out for it untouched, they announced to the people, with Themistocles supplying the interpretation, that the goddess had abandoned the city and was leading them on ahead toward the sea.
He used the oracle again to sway the people, saying that nothing else was meant by the 'wooden wall' than the ships; and that this was why the god called Salamis 'divine,' not 'dreadful' or 'cruel,' since its name was meant to mark a splendid stroke of luck coming to the Greeks. Having brought the assembly around to his view, he drafted a decree that the city be entrusted to Athena, guardian of the Athenians, and that every man of fighting age go aboard the triremes, while children, women, and slaves should each be gotten to safety however possible.
Once the decree was ratified, most of the Athenians sent their children and wives away to Troezen, where the Troezenians received them with great generosity — indeed they voted to maintain them at public expense, giving each two obols, and allowed the children to gather fruit from anywhere, and further paid teachers' fees on their behalf. The decree was proposed by Nicagoras.
Since the Athenians had no public funds, Aristotle says that the Council of the Areopagus, by providing eight drachmas to each man serving, was chiefly responsible for the manning of the triremes; but Cleidemus makes this too a stratagem of Themistocles. For he says that while the Athenians were making their way down toward Piraeus, it was discovered that the Gorgon's head was missing from the statue of the goddess; and Themistocles, pretending to search for it and rummaging through everything, discovered a great quantity of money hidden among the baggage, which, when brought out into the open, supplied those embarking on the ships with provisions.
As the city sailed away, the sight caused pity in some and wonder at their daring in others, as they sent their families off to another place while they themselves, unmoved by the wailing and tears and embraces of their parents, crossed over to the island. Yet many citizens who were left behind on account of old age felt pity; and there was also a certain sweetness of feeling stirred by the tame and domesticated animals, which ran alongside with howling and longing for their masters as they boarded the ships.
Among these it is recorded that Xanthippus — the man who fathered Pericles — owned a dog that could not endure being left behind, and it leapt into the sea and, swimming alongside the trireme, came ashore at Salamis, and, fainting, died at once; and they say that the place still shown today and called the Dog's Grave is his tomb.
These were great achievements of Themistocles; and perceiving that the citizens longed for Aristides and feared that in anger he might go over to the barbarian and overturn the cause of Greece (for he had been ostracized before the war, having been overpowered in factional strife by Themistocles), Themistocles drafted a decree allowing those exiled for a fixed period to return and to act and speak for the best interests of Greece together with the other citizens.
Eurybiades held command of the fleet on account of Sparta's standing, but he was faint-hearted in the face of danger and wished to weigh anchor and sail to the Isthmus, where the Peloponnesian land forces had also gathered; Themistocles opposed him. It was then that the famous exchange is said to have taken place. When Eurybiades said to him, 'Themistocles, in the games they whip those who start before the signal,' Themistocles replied, 'Yes, but they do not crown those left behind.'
When Eurybiades raised his staff as if to strike him, Themistocles said, 'Strike, but listen.' Eurybiades, astonished at his composure, told him to speak, and Themistocles brought him back around to his argument. When someone objected that a man with no city of his own had no standing to press those who did have one into abandoning and surrendering their homelands, Themistocles turned the argument back on him: 'We indeed,'
he said, 'you wretch, have left behind our houses and our walls, not thinking it right to be slaves for the sake of lifeless things; but we have a city, the greatest of the Greek cities, our two hundred triremes, which stand ready right now to rescue you, should you want their protection; but should you instead sail away and betray us a second time, some Greek will soon discover that the Athenians hold a free city and land no worse than what they lost.'
When Themistocles said this, fear and anxious thought about the Athenians seized Eurybiades, lest they should go off and abandon them. When the Eretrian tried to say something against him, Themistocles said, 'Do you indeed have any say about war, you who, like the squid, have a blade but no heart?'
It is said by some that Themistocles was arguing these points from the deck up on the ship, and that an owl was seen flying past on the right of the ships and settling on the mastheads; and it was chiefly for this reason that they were won over to his view and prepared to fight at sea.
But when the enemy's fleet, bearing down on Attica by way of Phalerum, hid the surrounding shores from view, and the king himself was seen coming down to the sea with his land army in a mass, and the two forces were now joined together, Themistocles' arguments slipped from the Greeks' minds, and the Peloponnesians again looked anxiously toward the Isthmus, growing angry if anyone said anything else, and it was decided to withdraw that night, and sailing orders were given to the pilots,
at which point Themistocles, taking it hard that the Greeks, having given up the advantage of the place and the straits, would scatter city by city, deliberated and put together the scheme involving Sicinnus. Sicinnus was Persian by birth, a prisoner of war, but well disposed toward Themistocles and tutor to his children.
Him he sent secretly to Xerxes, instructing him to say that Themistocles the Athenian general, choosing the king's side, was the first to report to him that the Greeks were running away, and urged him not to let them escape, but, while they were in confusion, separated from their land forces, to attack and destroy their naval power.
Xerxes, receiving this as spoken out of goodwill, was delighted, and at once gave orders to the commanders of the ships to man the rest of the fleet at leisure, but with two hundred ships already put to sea to encircle the whole channel in a ring and to blockade the islands, so that none of the enemy should escape.
While this was being done, Aristides son of Lysimachus was the first to notice it, and he made his way to Themistocles' tent — not as a friend, but rather as someone who had actually been ostracized on his account, as already mentioned — and stepping forward, he informed Themistocles of the encirclement. Themistocles, knowing the man's fine character generally and admiring his coming at that moment, told him about Sicinnus's mission and asked him to help persuade and encourage the Greeks with greater confidence, so that they might fight the battle in the straits.
So Aristides, praising Themistocles, went to the other generals and trierarchs, urging them on to battle. Yet as they still disbelieved, a Tenian trireme appeared as a deserter, commanded by Panaetius, reporting the encirclement, so that the Greeks, with both anger and necessity driving them, rushed to face the danger.
At daybreak Xerxes sat above, overseeing his fleet and its battle order — as Phanodemus says, above the Heracleum, where the island is separated from Attica by a narrow strait; but as Acestodorus says, on the border of the Megarid above the place called the Horns — having set up a golden throne and stationed beside him many secretaries, whose task it was to record everything done in the battle.
As Themistocles was sacrificing beside his flagship, three prisoners were brought to him, most beautiful to look upon and splendidly adorned in dress and gold. They were said to be the children of Sandauce, the King's sister, and of Artayctes. When the seer Euphrantides saw them, at the very moment a great and conspicuous flame blazed up from the sacrificial offerings and a sneeze sounded on the right as a sign, he clasped Themistocles' hand and urged that the young men be consecrated and every one of them sacrificed, with a prayer, to Dionysus Eater-of-Raw-Flesh; for in this way, he said, the Greeks would win both safety and victory.
Themistocles was thrown into confusion, since the prophecy was momentous and terrible, as usually happens in great struggles and difficult circumstances; but the multitude, hoping for safety rather from what defies reason than from what is reasonable, called upon the god together with one voice, and dragging the captives to the altar compelled the sacrifice to be carried out just as the seer had ordered. This is the account given by Phanias of Lesbos, a philosopher not unacquainted with historical writings.
As to the number of the barbarian ships, the poet Aeschylus, speaking as one who knew and could vouch for it, says this in his tragedy the Persians: 'For Xerxes — for I know — led a fleet numbering a thousand; and those exceeding this in speed were two hundred and seven: so runs the count.' Of the Attic ships, one hundred eighty in number, each carried eighteen men fighting from the deck, four of whom were archers, the rest hoplites.
Themistocles seems to have grasped the right moment no less well than the right place, and took care not to bring his triremes prow to prow against the barbarian ships before the usual hour arrived, when a fresh wind always blows in from the open sea and drives a swell through the straits. This did no harm to the Greek ships, which rode low upon the water and were somewhat squat in build, but it struck and threw off balance the barbarian ships, which had raised sterns and towering, heavy decks, and it delivered them broadside to the Greeks, who bore down on them swiftly and kept their eyes on Themistocles, since he best saw what was advantageous.
It was also opposite him that Xerxes' admiral Ariamenes, aboard a great ship, shot arrows and hurled javelins as if from a wall — a brave man, easily the bravest and most upright among the King's brothers. Ameinias of Decelea and Socles of Paeania, sailing together, engaged him: as their ships met prow to prow and were locked together by their bronze rams, they stood their ground as he tried to board their trireme and struck him with their spears and cast him into the sea; and Artemisia, recognizing his body as it drifted among the other wreckage, brought it back to Xerxes.
During this struggle a great light, they say, blazed out from Eleusis, and a sound and a voice filled the Thriasian plain all the way down to the sea, as though a multitude of people together were leading forth the mystic Iacchus. And out of the crowd of those crying out, a cloud seemed to rise little by little from the earth, and then to descend again and settle down upon the triremes. Others thought they saw phantoms and apparitions of armed men, raising their hands from Aegina before the Greek triremes — men they guessed to be the sons of Aeacus, called upon in prayers before the battle to bring aid.
The first to take an enemy ship was Lycomedes, an Athenian trierarch, who cut off its figurehead and offered it up to Apollo the Laurel-bearer at Phlya. The rest of the Greeks, matched in number against the barbarians in the narrow strait and coming on them one squadron at a time, colliding with one another, put them to flight, holding out until evening, as Simonides has said, and won that fair and famous victory, than which no more brilliant deed at sea has been accomplished by either Greeks or barbarians — by the courage and eagerness shared by all who fought at sea, and by the judgment and skill of Themistocles.
After the sea battle, Xerxes, still raging over his failure, attempted to build causeways and march his infantry over to Salamis to face the Greeks, sealing off the channel between. But Themistocles, testing Aristides, proposed as if in earnest that they take the fleet to the Hellespont and demolish the bridge, "so that," he said, "we may capture Asia within Europe."
Aristides was displeased and said, "As it is, we have been fighting a barbarian given over to extravagance; but if we pen him inside Greece and drive to desperation, through fear, a man who commands such vast forces, he will no longer recline beneath a golden canopy watching the battle at his ease, but daring everything and being present himself at everything because of the danger, he will set right what has been neglected and take better counsel for the whole of his affairs. It is not the bridge that now exists, then,"
he said, "that we ought to destroy, Themistocles, but rather, if it is at all possible, we should build another one in addition and drive the man out of Europe as quickly as we can." "Well then," said Themistocles, "if this seems advantageous, it is time for all of us to consider and devise a plan by which he will be got out of Greece as swiftly as possible."
When this was decided, he found among the prisoners a certain royal eunuch named Arnaces, and sent him to tell the King that the Greeks, now victorious at sea, had decided to sail up to the Hellespont to the bridge and break it apart, but that Themistocles, out of concern for the King, advised him to hasten to his own sea and cross over, while he himself would create delays and postponements for the allies in their pursuit.
When the barbarian heard this he was overcome with fear and made his retreat in haste. And the wisdom of Themistocles and Aristides was put to the proof in the case of Mardonius, since with only a small fraction of Xerxes' force the Greeks fought it out at Plataea and put the whole issue to the risk.
Herodotus says that of the cities, that of the Aeginetans distinguished itself most, but that to Themistocles all the generals, though unwillingly out of jealousy, awarded the prize for excellence. For when they had withdrawn to the Isthmus and were casting their votes from the altar, each first declared himself best in valor, but second, after himself, named Themistocles. The Spartans brought him back to Sparta and gave to Eurybiades a crown of olive as the prize for valor, but to Themistocles one for wisdom, and they presented him with the finest chariot the city possessed, and dispatched three hundred of their young men to escort him as far as the borders.
The story goes that at the following Olympic games, when Themistocles entered the stadium, those present ignored the competitors and gazed at him all day long, pointing him out to visitors with wonder and applause, so that he himself, delighted, confessed to his friends he was finally gathering in the harvest of his labors on behalf of Greece.
For by nature he was exceedingly ambitious for honor, if one may judge from the things remembered of him. For when he was chosen admiral by the city, he would not settle any business, private or public, piece by piece, but always put off whatever came up to that very day on which he was about to set sail, so that by managing many affairs together and dealing with all sorts of people he might seem great and to have the greatest power.
As he was examining the bodies of the dead cast up along the shore, when he saw gold bracelets and necklaces lying on them, he himself passed them by, but pointed them out to a friend following him and said, "Take these for yourself, for you are not Themistocles." And to one of the handsome young men, Antiphates, who had earlier treated him with disdain but later courted him because of his fame, he said, "Young man, it has taken a long time, but we have both come to our senses at the same moment."
He used to say that the Athenians did not honor or admire him, but treated him as they would a plane tree — running for shelter under it when a storm threatened and in danger, but when fine weather came, plucking off its leaves and lopping its branches. When a man of Seriphos told him that he had won his fame not through himself but through his city, he replied, "True, but neither would I, if I were a Seriphian, have become famous, nor would you, if you were an Athenian."
When another of the generals, thinking he had accomplished something useful for the city, grew bold toward Themistocles and set his own achievements against his, Themistocles said that once the day after a festival had quarreled with the festival itself, saying that the festival was full of trouble and toil, while on the day after everyone enjoyed at leisure what had been prepared; and the festival replied to this, "True, but if I had not existed, you would not exist either." "So too," he said, "if I had not existed then,
where would you be now?" And when his son was overbearing toward his mother and, on her account, taunted him, Themistocles said that this boy had the greatest power of all the Greeks: for the Greeks obeyed the Athenians, the Athenians obeyed him, he obeyed the boy's mother, and the mother obeyed the boy. Wishing to be distinctive in everything, when he was selling a piece of land he ordered the crier to announce that it also had a good neighbor; and among those courting his daughter he preferred the honorable man over the rich one, saying that he sought a man in need of money rather than money in need of a man. Such, then, was he in his sayings.
Immediately after those exploits, he set about rebuilding the city and fortifying it with walls — as Theopompus records, by bribing the ephors so that they would not oppose it, but as most say, by deceiving them. For he came to Sparta claiming to be there on an embassy; and when the Spartans charged that the Athenians were building city walls, and Polyarchus, sent expressly from Aegina for the purpose, brought the accusation,
he denied it and urged them to dispatch envoys to Athens who could verify matters for themselves, thereby gaining time for the wall-building through the delay, while also wishing the Athenians to hold those very envoys as hostages in his place. And this is exactly what happened: once the Spartans learned the facts, they inflicted no harm on him, but hid their anger and sent him away. After this he set about building the Piraeus, having recognized the natural advantage of its harbors and fitting the whole city to the sea, in a certain way pursuing a policy opposed to that of the ancient kings of Athens.
For those kings, it is said, in their effort to pull the citizens back from the sea and habituate them to living not as sailors but as tillers of the land, spread the story about Athena, how in her contest with Poseidon over the land she won the verdict of the judges by showing them the olive tree. But Themistocles did not, as the comic poet Aristophanes says, "stick the Piraeus onto the city"; rather he fastened the city
to the Piraeus, and bound the land to the sea. From this he strengthened the common people against the notables and instilled in them confidence, because power passed into the hands of sailors, boatswains, and pilots. This is why the speaker's platform on the Pnyx, which had been built to face the sea, was later turned by the Thirty to face the land, since they thought that mastery by sea was the origin of democracy, while farmers were less resentful of oligarchy.
Themistocles conceived something still greater concerning naval power. For when the Greek fleet, after Xerxes had withdrawn, put in at Pagasae and wintered there, he addressed the Athenians in assembly and said that he had a plan that would be beneficial to them, though it was not something that could be disclosed to the multitude.
When the Athenians ordered him to tell it to Aristides alone, and if he approved it, to carry it out, Themistocles told Aristides that he intended to burn the fleet of the Greeks in its dockyard; and Aristides, coming before the people, said that of the action which Themistocles intended to carry out, nothing was more advantageous, nor anything more unjust. So the Athenians, on account of this, ordered Themistocles to abandon it.
In the Amphictyonic councils, when the Spartans proposed that those cities which had not joined in the fight against the Mede should be barred from the Amphictyony, Themistocles, fearing that if they expelled the Thessalians, the Argives, and also the Thebans from the council, the Spartans would gain complete mastery of the votes and their will would prevail, spoke in support of the cities and changed the minds of the delegates, showing them
that only thirty-one cities in all had shared in the war effort, and that the majority of them were quite small; it would be a terrible thing, he said, if the rest of Greece were shut out from the league while the council came under the control of the two or three greatest cities. By this above all he offended the Spartans; and for this reason they advanced Cimon in honors, setting him up in the city's politics as a rival to Themistocles.
He was also burdensome to the allies, sailing around the islands and extracting money from them: for instance, when the Andrians refused him silver, Herodotus says he told them, and heard from them, the following. He said he had come bringing two gods with him, Persuasion and Force; and they answered that they too had two great gods among them, Poverty and Impossibility,
by whom they were prevented from giving him money. Timocreon of Rhodes, the lyric poet, attacks Themistocles rather bitterly in a song, on the ground that he arranged the return of other exiles for money, but abandoned him, though a guest-friend and a friend, for the sake of silver. He writes as follows: "But if you praise Pausanias, or Xanthippus, or Leutychidas, I for my part praise Aristides, the one best man to come from sacred Athens: since Themistocles was hated by Leto,"
"a liar, unjust, a traitor, who, though Timocreon was his guest-friend, was persuaded by wretched bribes of silver not to bring him back to his fatherland Ialysus; instead, accepting three silver talents, he sailed off to ruin, unjustly restoring some, driving out others, killing still others, gorged with silver, and at the Isthmus he ran an inn, absurdly, dishing out cold meat: and they ate it and prayed that Themistocles's season would never come."
Timocreon used still more unrestrained and open abuse against Themistocles after his exile and condemnation, in a song he composed, which begins: "Muse, spread the fame of this song among the Greeks," as is fitting and deserved. Timocreon, it is reported, was banished for medizing, Themistocles having cast his vote with the rest against him.
So when Themistocles himself came under the charge of medizing, Timocreon wrote these lines against him: "So Timocreon is not alone in swearing oaths with the Medes — other scoundrels do so as well: I am not the only docked fox; other foxes exist too."
By now, since the citizens gladly welcomed slanders against him out of envy, he was forced to be tiresome, often reminding them of his own achievements in the assembly; and to those who were annoyed by this he said, "Why are you weary of being benefited repeatedly by the same men?" He also vexed the many by establishing a temple of Artemis, whom he named Aristoboule, "of best counsel," on the ground that he had counseled best for the city and for the Greeks,
and he built the temple near his own house in Melite, where nowadays the public executioners cast out the bodies of those put to death, and carry out the clothing and the ropes of those who were hanged and taken down. There stood also a small statue of Themistocles in the temple of Aristoboule, still in our own day; and he appears to have been heroic not only in soul but also in looks.
They carried out ostracism against him, then, curtailing his reputation and pre-eminence, just as was their custom with everyone they regarded as oppressive in power and disproportionate to democratic equality. For ostracism was not a punishment, but a consolation and relief of envy, which delights in humbling those who stand out, and breathes its ill-will into this dishonor.
When he had been cast out of the city and was living at Argos, the affair of Pausanias, as it turned out, gave his enemies a handle against him. The man who indicted him for treason was Leobotes, son of Alcmaeon, of Agraule, with the Spartans joining in the accusation. For Pausanias, in carrying out that business of treason, at first concealed it from Themistocles,
even though he was a friend; but when he saw him cast out of public life and bearing it badly, he took courage to invite him into a share of his undertakings, showing him letters sent by the King and urging him on against the Greeks as wicked and ungrateful. Themistocles rejected Pausanias's request and refused the partnership entirely, yet he disclosed the conversation to no one and did not denounce the scheme, whether because he expected Pausanias would stop, or because he thought the man would otherwise become exposed anyway, reaching out with no rational plan for things so strange and reckless.
So once Pausanias had been executed, various letters and papers uncovered concerning these matters cast suspicion on Themistocles: and the Lacedaemonians cried out against him, while those citizens who envied him brought accusations, he not being present but defending himself by letters, chiefly against the earlier charges.
For being slandered by his enemies before the citizens, he wrote that he who was always seeking to rule, and by nature unfitted and unwilling to be ruled, would never sell himself, along with Greece, to barbarians or enemies. Nevertheless, the people, persuaded by his accusers, sent men who were ordered to arrest him and bring him back to be tried before the Greeks.
Perceiving this beforehand, he crossed over to Corcyra, since he had done that city a service. For having become their arbitrator in a dispute they had with the Corinthians, he settled the quarrel by ruling that the Corinthians should pay twenty talents and that Leucas should be jointly held as a colony of both. From there he escaped to Epirus; and since the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were pursuing him, he cast himself upon difficult and desperate hopes, taking refuge with Admetus,
king of the Molossians; Admetus, having once been denied a request by the Athenians and insulted by Themistocles during the period Themistocles wielded greatest influence in the city, bore him a lasting grudge and made it plain that, should he catch him, he would exact revenge. But in his present misfortune Themistocles feared more the fresh and recent envy of his fellow citizens than an old and royal wrath, and so he committed himself to that danger, becoming a suppliant of Admetus in a peculiar and unusual manner.
For taking the king's son, still a child, he fell before the hearth with him, this being considered by the Molossians the greatest and almost the only irrefusable form of supplication. Some say that Phthia, the king's wife, suggested this act of supplication to Themistocles and had her son sit at the hearth with him: others say that Admetus himself, so as to have an excuse before his pursuers for the necessity that kept him from surrendering the man, arranged and staged the whole supplication together with him.
There Epicrates of Acharnae, having smuggled his wife and children out of Athens, sent them to him: for which Cimon later tried and put him to death, as Stesimbrotus relates. Then, I do not know how, forgetting these facts, or making Themistocles forget them, he says that he sailed to Sicily and asked Hiero the tyrant for his daughter in marriage, promising to make the Greeks subject to him: and when Hiero refused, that he thereupon sailed off to Asia.
It is not likely that these things happened in this way. For Theophrastus, in his work On Kingship, relates that when Hiero sent racehorses to Olympia to compete and set up a tent furnished at great expense, Themistocles made a speech among the Greeks urging that the tyrant's tent should be torn apart and his horses barred from competing.
Thucydides says that he sailed down to the other sea from Pydna, none of his fellow travelers aware of his identity, until the merchant vessel, driven by the wind toward Naxos, then under siege by the Athenians, he grew frightened and revealed himself to the shipowner and the pilot, and partly by entreaty, partly by threats, saying that he would denounce them and falsely accuse them before the Athenians, claiming that they had taken him aboard not in ignorance but persuaded by money from the start, he forced them in this way to sail past and put in at the coast of Asia.
Much of his money was secretly smuggled out to Asia by his friends; but of what became known and was collected for the public treasury, Theopompus says the amount was a hundred talents, Theophrastus says eighty, though Themistocles had not possessed property worth even three talents before he entered public life.
When he had put in at Cyme and perceived that many of those along the coast were watching to seize him, especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for the hunt was profitable to those who loved gain from any source, since the King had proclaimed a reward of two hundred talents for him), he escaped to Aegae, a small town of the Aeolians, unknown to everyone there except his guest-friend Nicogenes, who possessed the greatest wealth of the Aeolians and was known to the powerful men above.
Hiding at his house, he spent a few days there: then, after dinner, following some sacrifice, Olbius, the tutor of Nicogenes's children, fell into a trance, becoming possessed by the god, and cried out in verse these words: "To night give voice, to night give counsel, to night give victory." And after this Themistocles, going to sleep, seemed to see in a dream a serpent coiling around his belly and creeping up toward his neck: then, becoming an eagle,
as it touched his face, it spread its wings and lifted him up and carried him a long way, and then, when a golden herald's staff appeared, it set him firmly upon it, freed from an overwhelming terror and confusion. So he was sent off by Nicogenes, who contrived some such device as this. The greater part of the barbarian race, and especially the Persian, is by nature fierce and harsh in its jealousy concerning women.
For they keep close watch not merely over their lawful wives, but also over their purchased slave-women and concubines, so that they are seen by none from outside, but live shut up at home, and on journeys are carried in covered wagons, fenced round on every side with curtains. Such a covered carriage was fitted out for Themistocles, and he was carried inside it, while those around him always told anyone they met and who asked that they were bringing a Greek woman from Ionia to one of the men at the King's court.
Thucydides, then, and Charon of Lampsacus relate that Xerxes had already died, and that it was with his son that Themistocles had his meeting: but Ephorus and Deinon and Cleitarchus and Heracleides, and still others besides, say that he came before Xerxes himself. Thucydides seems more in agreement with the chronology, though even the chronologists themselves are not perfectly consistent.
Themistocles, then, when he came right up to the danger point, first met with Artabanus the chiliarch, informing him that he was Greek and desired an audience with the King on matters of the greatest importance and matters in which the King himself happened to be especially concerned. Artabanus said: "Stranger, the customs of men differ: different things are noble to different peoples: but it is noble for all to honor and preserve their own ways.
You, it is said, admire freedom and equality above all: but among us, though we have many noble customs, this is the noblest, to honor the King, and to prostrate oneself before him as the image of the god who preserves all things. If, then, you will prostrate yourself in approval of our ways, you may both behold the King and address him: but if you think otherwise, you will have to use other messengers to reach him. For it is not our ancestral custom for the King to listen to anyone who has failed to prostrate himself."
Hearing this, Themistocles said to him: "But I for my part, Artabanus, have come to increase the King's fame and power, and I myself will submit to your customs, since it is the will of the god who exalts the Persians that it be so, and through me more men than now will prostrate themselves before the King. So let this be no hindrance to what I wish to say to him."
"But which of the Greeks," said Artabanus, "shall we say has come? For your mind does not seem like that of an ordinary man." And Themistocles said: "No one, Artabanus, could learn this before the King himself." So Phanias says. But Eratosthenes, in his work On Wealth, adds further that it was through an Eretrian woman, whom the chiliarch kept, that the meeting and introduction to Themistocles came about.
When at last he was brought in before the King and, after doing obeisance, stood in silence, the King ordered his interpreter to ask who he was, and when the interpreter asked, he said: "I have come to you, O King, I, Themistocles the Athenian, a fugitive pursued by the Greeks. Many are the evils the Persians owe to me, but greater are the goods, since I stopped the pursuit, when Greece, once safe, allowed me, from what was preserved at home, to do you a favor as well."
"For my part, then, everything suits my present misfortunes, and I have come prepared both to receive kindly the favor of one who is reconciled and to beg off the anger of one who still remembers wrongs done him. But you, taking my enemies as witnesses of the benefits I did the Persians, should now make use of my fortunes to display virtue rather than to satisfy anger. For you will save a suppliant of yours, but destroy a man who became an enemy of the Greeks."
Having said this, Themistocles gave his speech a divine coloring by going on to relate the vision he had seen at Nicogenes' house, and the oracle of Zeus of Dodona, how, being bidden to go to the one who bore the same name as the god, he had understood this to mean he should betake himself to him — for both were great, and both called kings. When the Persian heard this, he made no answer to him directly, although he marveled at his spirit and
his boldness. But he counted himself blessed before his friends, as at the greatest good fortune, and prayed that Arimanius would always give such minds to his enemies, so that they would drive out their best men from among themselves; and he is said to have sacrificed to the gods and at once turned to drinking, and, in the depths of night as sleep held him, to have shouted for joy three separate times: "I have Themistocles the Athenian."
As soon as dawn broke he summoned his friends and had Themistocles brought before him, though Themistocles expected nothing good from what he saw of the men at the doors — how, when they learned his name as he stood there, they were harshly disposed and spoke ill of him. Moreover, as Themistocles approached him, while the King sat and the others were silent, Roxanes the chiliarch, sighing quietly, said: "The subtle Greek serpent — the King's guardian spirit has brought you here."
Nevertheless, when he came into the King's presence and again did obeisance, the King welcomed him with a friendly greeting, and told him that two hundred talents were already owed to him as a debt; since he had delivered himself into custody, he was rightly entitled to the reward announced for whoever captured him. He promised much more than this besides, and encouraged him, and gave him leave to speak freely and say what he wished about Greek affairs.
Themistocles answered that a man's speech was like an embroidered carpet: as with the carpet, so with speech, when it is spread out it displays its patterns, but when it is folded up it hides and spoils them. Hence he needed time. The King, delighted with the comparison and bidding him take it, granted him a year, and having in that time learned the Persian tongue sufficiently, he began to converse with the King directly,
which gave those outside the impression that he had been discussing Greek affairs; but since many innovations were being made at that time around the court and among the King's friends, he incurred the envy of the powerful, since he had also dared to speak his mind freely against them to the King. For the honors paid him were nothing like those given other foreigners, but he even shared in the King's hunts and in his pastimes at home, so that he even came into the presence of the King's mother and grew intimate with her, and by the King's order he was even instructed in the teachings of the Magi.
When Demaratus the Spartan was invited to request whatever gift he wished and asked to be allowed to ride through Sardis wearing the upright tiara, as the kings do, Mithropaustes, a cousin of the King's, touching Demaratus' turban, said: "This tiara has no brain to cover, and you
will not be Zeus even if you take the thunderbolt." The King, angered at the request, pushed Demaratus away and seemed to be implacably set against him; but Themistocles, by entreaty, persuaded him and reconciled them. And it is said that the later kings too, under whom Persian and Greek affairs were more mingled together, whenever they had need of a Greek man, would each promise in writing that he would stand higher in their favor than Themistocles.
They say that Themistocles himself, when he was already great and courted by many, once, when a splendid table was set before him, said to his sons: "Boys, we would have been ruined, if we had not been ruined." Most say that three cities were given him for bread, wine, and delicacies — Magnesia, Lampsacus, and Myus; but Neanthes of Cyzicus together with Phanias name a further pair, Percote and Palaescepsis, for bedding and clothing.
As he went down toward the sea to attend to Greek affairs, a Persian man named Epixyes, satrap of upper Phrygia, plotted against him, having long before arranged for some Pisidians to kill him whenever he came and lodged for the night in the village called Lion's Head. As he slept at midday, they say, the goddess who is Mother of the Gods came to him in a vision as he slept and spoke: "Themistocles, keep away from the head of lions, so that you do not fall in with a lion. In return for this I ask of you the servant girl Mnesiptolema."
Themistocles, disturbed, prayed to the goddess, left the main road, made a detour along a different path so as to steer clear of that spot, and, since night had already fallen, took lodging somewhere else. But one of the pack animals carrying his tent fell into the river, and Themistocles' servants, spreading out the tent-hangings that had gotten soaked, hung them out to dry. Meanwhile the Pisidians, taking their swords, came upon them, and not seeing clearly by moonlight the things drying, thought them to be Themistocles' tent and that they would find him inside, resting.
But when they drew near and lifted the hanging, the guards fell upon them and seized them. Having thus escaped the danger and marveling at the goddess's manifestation, he built a temple to her at Magnesia, to Dindymene, and appointed his daughter Mnesiptolema as priestess.
When he came to Sardis and, with time on his hands, was touring the buildings of the temples along with their abundant dedications, he noticed inside the shrine of the Mother a bronze maiden bearing water, two cubits in size, which he himself, when he was overseer of the waters at Athens, had dedicated out of the fine he exacted from those who were stealing the water and diverting it — whether he felt some emotion at the offering being taken captive, or wished to show the Athenians how much honor and power he held in the King's affairs, he made a proposal to the satrap of Lydia, asking him to send the maiden to Athens.
The barbarian took offense and declared that he would send the King a written account of the matter; and Themistocles, alarmed, took refuge in the women's quarters and, courting the satrap's concubines with money, both soothed his anger and in other matters made himself more cautious, now fearing the envy of the barbarians as well. For he did not wander about Asia, as Theopompus says, but lived in Magnesia, enjoying great gifts and honored equally with the best of the Persians, and passed a long time free from fear, since the King was not paying much attention to Greek affairs, being occupied with matters in the upper regions.
But when Egypt revolted with Athenian help, and Greek triremes made their way out to Cyprus and Cilicia, and Cimon, master of the sea, turned the King's attention to opposing the Greeks and checking their growth against him, and forces were already being set in motion and generals sent about, and messages came down to Themistocles, the King bidding him to take up Greek affairs and make good his promises,
neither provoked by any anger against his fellow citizens nor puffed up by so great an honor and power for making war, but perhaps also considering the task not attainable, since Greece then had other great generals and Cimon was prospering extraordinarily in war, but most of all out of reverence for the glory of his own deeds and those trophies of his, having concluded that the best course was to bring his life to a fitting close,
he sacrificed to the gods, and gathering his friends and greeting them, as the common account has it, drank bull's blood, though some say he took a swift-acting poison, and died at Magnesia at the age of sixty-five, having devoted the greater part of those years to public life and to holding positions of command. And they say that once the King learned how and why he had died, his admiration for the man only deepened, and he went on showing kindness toward Themistocles' friends and household.
Themistocles left children: by Archippe, daughter of Lysander of Alopece, Archeptolis, Polyeuctus, and Cleophantus, of whom Plato the philosopher makes mention as an excellent horseman, but as nothing else of worth. Of the eldest, Neocles, while still a boy, died from a horse bite, and Diocles was adopted as a son by his grandfather Lysander.
He was also father to a number of daughters; among them Mnesiptolema, whose mother was the wife he married later, was wed by her half-brother Archeptolis, who was not her full brother by the same mother; Italia was wed by Panthoides of Chios, Sybaris by Nicomedes the Athenian; Nicomache was taken by Phrasicles, Themistocles' nephew, who sailed to Magnesia and received her from her brothers after Themistocles himself had already died, and Asia, the youngest of all his children, he raised himself.
The Magnesians have a splendid tomb of his in their marketplace; but as for his remains, it is not worth heeding Andocides, who says in his speech Against His Companions that the Athenians, discovering the remains, scattered them (for he is lying, provoking the oligarchs against the democracy), nor Phylarchus, who, as if in a tragedy raising nearly a stage-machine, brings forward certain Neocles and Demopolis as sons of Themistocles, wishing to stir up a contest and a display of pathos which no ordinary person would fail to recognize as invented.
Diodorus the guide, in his work On Tombs, has said, more by conjecture than by knowledge, that near the great harbor of Piraeus, from the headland at Alcimus, there juts out a kind of elbow, and if one rounds this on the inner side, where the sea is calm, there is a fairly large foundation, and around it an altar-shaped tomb of Themistocles.
He thinks that Plato the comic poet also bears witness to him in these lines: "Your tomb, heaped up in a fair place, will be a greeting everywhere to the merchants, and will see those sailing out and sailing in, and whenever there is a contest of ships, it will watch." And certain honors for those of Themistocles' family were preserved at Magnesia down to our own times, which Themistocles the Athenian enjoyed, a man who became our friend and companion at the house of Ammonius the philosopher.