and at once gave orders to the commanders of his ships to make ready for
battle at their leisure, all but two hundred, whom he ordered to put to
sea at once, surround the whole strait, and close up the passages
through the islands, so that no one of the enemy could escape. While
this was being done, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, who was the
first to perceive it, came to the tent of Themistokles, although the
latter was his enemy, and had driven him into exile. When Themistokles
came to meet him, he told him they were surrounded; knowing the frank
and noble character of Aristeides, Themistokles told him the whole plot,
and begged him as a man in whom the Greeks could trust, to encourage
them to fight a battle in the straits. Aristeides praised Themistokles
for what he had done, and went round to the other generals and captains
of ships, inciting them to fight. Yet they were inclined to doubt even
the word of Aristeides, when a trireme from the island of Tenos, under
the command of Panaitios, came in, having deserted from the enemy, and
brought the news that the Greeks were really surrounded. Then, in a
spirit of anger and despair, they prepared for the struggle.
XIII. At daybreak Xerxes took his seat on a high cliff overlooking all
his host, just above the Temple of Herakles, we are told by Phanodemus,
where the strait between Salamis and Attica is narrowest, but according
to Akestodorus, close to the Megarian frontier, upon the mountains
called Horns. Here he sat upon the golden throne, with many scribes
standing near, whose duty it was to write down the events of the battle.
While Themistokles was sacrificing on the beach, beside the admiral's
ship, three most beautiful captive boys were brought to him, splendidly
adorned with gold and fine clothes. They were said to be the children of
Sandauke, the sister of Xerxes, and Artäuktes. When Euphrantides the
prophet saw them, there shone at once from the victims on the altar a
great and brilliant flame, and at the same time some one was heard to
sneeze on the right hand, which is a good omen. Euphrantides now
besought Themistokles to sacrifice these young men as victims to
Dionysus, to whom human beings are sacrificed; so should the Greeks
obtain safety and victory. Themistokles was struck with horror at this
terrible proposal; but the multitude, who, as is natural with people in
great danger, hoped to be saved by miraculous rather than by ordinary
means, called upon the God with one voice, and leading the captives up
to the altar, compelled him to offer them up as the prophet bade him.
This story rests on the authority of Phanias of Lesbos, who was a man of
education, and well read in history.
XIV. As for the numbers of the Persian fleet, the poet Aeschylus, as
though he knew it clearly, writes as follows in his tragedy of the
Persae:
"And well I know a thousand sail
That day did Xerxes meet,
And seven and two hundred more,
The fastest of his fleet."
The Athenian ships, a hundred and eighty in number, had each eighteen
men on deck, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy-armed
soldiers. Themistokles now chose the time for the battle as judiciously
as he had chosen the place, and would not bring his triremes into line
of battle before the fresh wind off the sea, as is usual in the morning,
raised a heavy swell in the straits. This did not damage the low flat
ships of the Greeks, but it caught the high-sterned Persian ships,
over-weighted as they were with lofty decks, and presented their
broadsides to the Greeks, who eagerly attacked them, watching
Themistokles because he was their best example, and also because
Ariamenes, Xerxes's admiral, and the bravest and best of the king's
brothers, attacked him in a huge ship, from which, as if from a castle,
he poured darts and arrows upon him.
But Ameinias of Dekeleia and Sokles of Pedia, who were both sailing in
the same vessel, met him stem to stem. Each ship crashed into the other
with its iron beak, and was torn open. Ariamenes attempted to board the
Greek ship, but these two men set upon him with their spears, and drove
him into the sea. His body was noticed by Queen Artemisia floating
amongst the other wreckage, and was by her brought to Xerxes.
XV. At this period of the battle it is said that a great light was seen
to shine from Eleusis, and that a great noise was heard upon the
Thriasian plain near the sea, as though multitudes of men were escorting
the mystic Iacchus in procession. From the place where these sounds were
heard a mist seemed to spread over the sea and envelop the ships. Others
thought that they saw spirit-forms of armed men come from Aegina, and
hold their hands before the ships of the Greeks. These it was supposed
were the Aeakid heroes, to whom prayers for help had been offered just
before the battle. The first man to capture a ship was Lykomedes, an
Athenian captain, who cut off its ensign and dedicated it to Apollo with
the laurel crown at the Temple at Phlyae.
In the narrow straits the Persians were unable to bring more than a part
of their fleet into action, and their ships got into each other's way,
so that the Greeks could meet them on equal terms, and, although they
resisted until evening, completely routed them, winning, as Simonides
calls it, that "glorious and famous victory," the greatest exploit ever
achieved at sea, which owed its success to the bravery of the sailors
and the genius of Themistokles.
XVI. After this naval defeat, Xerxes, enraged at his failure,
endeavoured to fill up the strait with earth, and so to make a passage
for his land forces to Salamis, to attack the Greeks there. Now
Themistokles, in order to try the temper of Aristeides, proposed that
the fleet should sail to the Hellespont, and break the bridge of boats
there, "in order," said he, "that we may conquer Asia in Europe." But
Aristeides disapproved of this measure, saying, "Hitherto we have fought
against the Persian king, while he has been at his ease; but if we shut
him up in Greece, and drive the chief of so large an army to despair, he
will no longer sit quietly under a golden umbrella to look on at his
battles, but will strain every nerve and superintend every operation in
person, and so will easily retrieve his losses and form better plans for
the future."
"Instead of breaking down the existing bridge for him, Themistokles,"
said he, "we ought rather, if possible, at once to build another, and
send the man out of Europe as quickly as possible." "Well then,"
answered Themistokles, "if you think that our interest lies in that
direction, we ought all to consider and contrive to send him out of
Greece as fast as we can." When this resolution was adopted,
Themistokles sent one of the king's eunuchs, whom he had found among the
prisoners, bidding him warn Xerxes that "the Greeks had determined after
their victory to sail to the Hellespont and break the bridge, but that
Themistokles, out of his regard for the king, advises him to proceed as
fast as he can to his own sea, and cross over it, while he
(Themistokles) gained time for him by delaying the allied fleet."
Xerxes, hearing thus, was much alarmed and retired in all haste. And
indeed the battle with Mardonius at Plataea shows us which of the two
was right; for the Greeks there could scarcely deal with a small part of
the Persian army, and what therefore could they have done with the
whole?
XVII. Herodotus tells us that, of Greek States, Aegina received the
prize of valour, and that, of the generals, it was awarded to
Themistokles, though against the will of the voters. When the armies
retired to the Isthmus all the generals laid their votes on the altar
there, and each man declared himself to deserve the first prize for
valour, and Themistokles to deserve the second. However, the
Lacedaemonians brought him home with them to Sparta, and gave Eurybiades
the first prize for valour, but Themistokles that for wisdom, a crown of
olive-leaves. They also gave him the best chariot in their city, and
sent three hundred of their young men to escort him out of the country.
It is also related that at the next Olympian games, when Themistokles
appeared upon the race-course, all the spectators took no further
interest in the contests, but passed the whole day in admiring and
applauding him, and in pointing him out to such as were strangers; so
that he was delighted, and said to his friends that he had now received
his reward for all his labours on behalf of Greece.
XVIII. He was by nature excessively fond of admiration, as we may judge
from the stories about him which have been preserved. Once, when he was
made admiral of the Athenian fleet, he put off all the necessary
business of his office until the day appointed for sailing, in order
that he might have a great many dealings with various people all at
once, and so appear to be a person of great influence and importance.
And when he saw the corpses floating in the sea with gold bracelets and
necklaces, he himself passed them by, but pointed them out to a friend
who was following, saying, "Do you pick them up and keep them; for you
are not Themistokles." A beautiful youth, named Antiphates, regarded him
coolly at first, but eventually became submissive to him because of his
immense reputation. "Young man," said Themistokles, "it has taken some
time, but we have at length both regained our right minds." He used to
say that the Athenians neither admired nor respected him, but used him
like a plane-tree under which they took shelter in storm, but which in
fair weather they lopped and stripped of its leaves. Once when a citizen
of Seriphos said to him that he owed his glory, not to himself but to
his city, he answered, "Very true; I should not have become a great man
if I had been a Seriphian, nor would you if you had been an Athenian."
When one of his fellow-generals, who thought that he had done the state
good service, was taking a haughty tone, and comparing his exploits with
those of Themistokles, he said, "The day after a feast, once upon a
time, boasted that it was better than the feast-day itself, because on
that day all men are full of anxiety and trouble, while upon the next
day every one enjoys what has been prepared at his leisure. But the
feast-day answered, 'Very true, only but for me you never would have
been at all.' So now," said he, "if I had not come first, where would
you all have been now?" His son, who was spoiled by his mother, and by
himself to please her, he said was the most powerful person in Greece;
for the Athenians ruled the Greeks, he ruled the Athenians, his wife
ruled him, and his son ruled his wife. Wishing to be singular in all
things, when he put up a plot of ground for sale, he ordered the crier
to announce that there were good neighbours next to it. When two men
paid their addresses to his daughter, he chose the more agreeable
instead of the richer of the two, saying that he preferred a man without
money to money without a man. Such was his character, as shown in his
talk.
XIX. Immediately after the great war, he began to rebuild and fortify
the city. In order to succeed in this, Theopompus says that he bribed
the Spartan ephors into laying aside opposition, but most writers say
that he outwitted them by proceeding to Sparta nominally on an embassy.
Then when the Spartans complained to him that Athens was being
fortified, and when Poliarchus came expressly from Aegina to charge him
with it, he denied it, and bade them send commissioners to Athens to see
whether it was true, wishing both to obtain time for the fortifications
to be built, and also to place these commissioners in the hands of the
Athenians, as hostages for his own safety. His expectations were
realised; for the Lacedaemonians, on discovering the truth, did him no
harm, but dissembled their anger and sent him away. After this he built
Peiraeus, as he perceived the excellence of its harbours, and was
desirous to turn the whole attention of the Athenians to naval pursuits.
In this he pursued a policy exactly the opposite to that of the ancient
kings of Attica; for they are said to have endeavoured to keep their
subjects away from the sea, and to accustom them to till the ground
instead of going on board ships, quoting the legend that Athene and
Poseidon had a contest for the possession of the land, and that she
gained a decision in her favour by the production of the sacred olive.
Themistokles, on the other hand, did not so much "stick Peiraeus on to
Athens," as Aristophanes the comic poet said, as make the city dependent
upon Peiraeus, and the land dependent on the sea. By this means he
transferred power from the nobles to the people, because sailors and
pilots became the real strength of the State. For this reason the thirty
tyrants destroyed the bema, or tribune on the place of public assembly,
which was built looking towards the sea, and built another which looked
inland, because they thought that the naval supremacy of Athens had been
the origin of its democratic constitution, and that an oligarchy had
less to fear from men who cultivated the land.
XX. Themistokles had even more extended views than these about making
the Athenians supreme at sea. When Xerxes was gone, the whole Greek
fleet was drawn up on shore for the winter at Pagasae. Themistokles then
publicly told the Athenians that he had a plan which would save and
benefit them all, but which must not be divulged. The Athenians bade him
tell Aristeides only, and to execute his designs if he approved.
Themistokles then told Aristeides that his design was to burn the whole
Greek fleet as they lay on the beach. But Aristeides came forward and
told the people that no proposal could be more advantageous or more
villainous; so that the Athenians forbade Themistokles to proceed with
it. On another occasion the Lacedaemonians proposed, in a meeting of the
Amphiktyonic council, that all States that had taken no part in the
Persian war should be excluded from that council; Themistokles, fearing
that if the Lacedaemonians should exclude Thessaly, Argos, and Thebes,
they would have complete control over the votes, and be able to carry
what measures they pleased, made representations to the various States,
and influenced the votes of their deputies at the meeting, pointing out
to them that there were only thirty-one States which took any part in
the war, and that most of these were very small ones, so that it would
be unreasonable for one or two powerful States to pronounce the rest of
Greece outlawed, and be supreme in the council. After this he generally
opposed the Lacedaemonians; wherefore they paid special court to Kimon,
in order to establish him as a political rival to Themistokles.
XXI. Moreover, he made himself odious to the allies by sailing about the
islands and wringing money from them. A case in point is the
conversation which Herodotus tells us he held with the people of Andros,
when trying to get money from them. He said that he was come, bringing
with him two gods, Persuasion and Necessity; but they replied that they
also possessed two equally powerful ones, Poverty and Helplessness, by
whom they were prevented from supplying him with money. The poet,
Timokreon of Rhodes, in one of his songs, writes bitterly of
Themistokles, saying that he was prevailed upon by the bribes which he
received from exiles to restore them to their native country, but
abandoned himself, who was his guest and friend. The song runs as
follows:
"Though ye may sing Pausanias or Xanthippus in your lays,
Or Leotychides, 'tis Aristeides whom I praise,
The best of men as yet produced by holy Athens' State,
Since thus upon Themistokles has fall'n Latona's hate:
That liar and that traitor base, who for a bribe unclean,
Refused to reinstate a man who his own guest had been.
His friend too, in his native Ialysus, but who took
Three silver talents with him, and his friend forsook.
Bad luck go with the fellow, who unjustly some restores
From exile, while some others he had banished from our shores,
And some he puts to death; and sits among us gorged with pelf.
He kept an ample table at the Isthmian games himself,
And gave to every guest that came full plenty of cold meat,
The which they with a prayer did each and every of them eat,
But their prayer was 'Next year be there no Themistokles to meet.'"
And after the exile and condemnation of Themistokles, Timokreon wrote
much more abusively about him in a song which begins,
"Muse, far away,
Sound this my lay,
For it both meet and right is."
It is said that Timokreon was exiled from home for having dealings with
the Persians, and that Themistokles confirmed his sentence. When, then,
Themistokles was charged with intriguing with the Persians, Timokreon
wrote upon him,
"Timokreon is not the only Greek
That turned a traitor, Persian gold to seek;
I'm not the only fox without a tail,
But others put their honour up for sale."
XXII. As the Athenians, through his unpopularity, eagerly listened to
any story to his discredit, he was obliged to weary them by constantly
repeating the tale of his own exploits to them. In answer to those who
were angry with him, he would ask, "Are you weary of always receiving
benefits from the same hand?" He also vexed the people by building the
Temple of Artemis of Good Counsel, as he called her, hinting that he had
taken good counsel for the Greeks. This temple he placed close to his
own house in Melite, at the place where at the present day the public
executioner casts out the bodies of executed criminals, and the clothes
and ropes of men who have hanged themselves. Even in our own times a
small statue of Themistokles used to stand in the Temple of Artemis of
Good Counsel; and he seems to have been a hero not only in mind, but in
appearance. The Athenians made use of ostracism to banish him, in order
to reduce his extravagant pretensions, as they always were wont to do in
the case of men whom they thought over powerful and unfit for living in
the equality of a democracy. For ostracism implied no censure, but was
intended as a vent for envious feelings, which were satisfied by seeing
the object of their hatred thus humbled.
XXIII. When Themistokles was banished from Athens, he lived in Argos,
during which time the proceedings of Pausanias gave a great opportunity
to his enemies. He was impeached on a charge of treason by Leobotes, the
son of Alkmaeon of Agraulai, and the Spartans joined in the impeachment.
Pausanias, indeed, at first concealed his treacherous designs from
Themistokles, although he was his friend; but when he saw that
Themistokles was banished, and chafing at the treatment he had received,
he was encouraged to ask him to share his treason, and showed him the
letters which he had received from the Persian king, at the same time
inflaming his resentment against the Greeks, whom he spoke of as
ungrateful wretches. Themistokles refused utterly to join Pausanias, but
nevertheless told no one of his treasonable practices, either because he
hoped that he would desist, or that his visionary and impossible
projects would be disclosed by other means. And thus it was that when
Pausanias was put to death, certain letters and writings on this subject
were found, which threw suspicion upon Themistokles. The Lacedaemonians
loudly condemned him, and many of his own countrymen, because of the
enmity they bore him, brought charges against him. He did not appear in
person at first, but answered these attacks by letters. In these he told
his accusers that he had always sought to rule, and was not born to
obey; so that he never would sell himself and Greece to be a slave to
the Persians. But in spite of these arguments, his enemies prevailed
upon the Athenians to send men with orders to seize him, and bring him
to be tried by Greece.
XXIV. He was apprised of this in time to take refuge in Korkyra, a State
which was under obligations to him. For once, when Korkyra was at
variance with Corinth, he had been chosen to arbitrate between them, and
had reconciled them, giving as his award that the Corinthians were to
pay down twenty talents, and each State to have an equal share in the
city and island of Leucas, as being a colony from both of them. From
thence he fled to Epirus; but, being still pursued by the Athenians and
Lacedaemonians, he adopted a desperate resolution. Admetus, the king of
the Molossians, had once made some request to the Athenians, which
Themistokles, who was then in the height of his power, insultingly
refused to grant. Admetus was deeply incensed, and eager for vengeance;
but now Themistokles feared the fresh fury of his countrymen more than
this old grudge of the king's, put himself at his mercy, and became a
suppliant to Admetus in a novel and strange fashion; for he lay down at
the hearth of Admetus, holding that prince's infant son, which is
considered among the Molossians to be the most solemn manner of becoming
a suppliant, and one which cannot be refused. Some say that Phthia, the
king's wife, suggested this posture to Themistokles, and placed her
infant on the hearth with him; while others say that Admetus, in order
to be able to allege religious reasons for his refusal to give up
Themistokles to his pursuers, himself arranged the scene with him. After
this, Epikrates, of the township of Acharnai, managed to convey his wife
and children out of Athens to join him, for which, we are told by
Stesimbrotus, Kimon subsequently had him condemned and executed. But,
singularly enough, afterwards Stesimbrotus either forgets his wife and
children, or makes Themistokles forget them, when he says that he sailed
to Sicily and demanded the daughter of the despot Hiero in marriage,
promising that he would make all Greece obey him. As Hiero rejected his
proposals, he then went to Asia.
XXV. Now it is not probable that this ever took place. Theophrastus, in
his treatise on monarchy, relates that when Hiero sent race-horses to
Olympia and pitched a costly tent there, Themistokles said to the
assembled Greeks that they ought to destroy the despot's tent, and not
permit his horses to run. Thucydides too informs us that he crossed to
the Aegean sea, and set sail from Pydna, none of his fellow-travellers
knowing who he was until the ship was driven by contrary winds to Naxos,
which was then being besieged by the Athenians. Then he became alarmed,
and told the captain and the pilot who he was, and, partly by
entreaties, partly by threats that he would denounce them to the
Athenians, and say that they well knew who he was, but were carrying him
out of the country for a bribe, he prevailed on them to hold on their
course to the coast of Asia.
Of his property, much was concealed by his friends and sent over to him
in Asia; but what was confiscated to the public treasury amounted,
according to Theopompus, to a hundred talents, and according to
Theophrastus to eighty, albeit Themistokles, before his entrance into
political life, did not possess property worth three talents.
XXVI. When he sailed to Kyme, he found that many of the inhabitants of
the Ionic coast were watching for an opportunity to capture him,
especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for indeed, to men who cared not
how they made their money, he would have been a rich prize, as the
Persian king had offered a reward of two hundred talents for him), he
fled to Aegae, a little Aeolian city, where he was known by no one
except his friend Nikogenes, the richest of all the Aeolians, who was
well known to the Persians of the interior. In this man's house he lay
concealed for some days. Here, after the feast which followed a
sacrifice, Olbius, who took charge of Nikogenes's children, fell into a
kind of inspired frenzy, and spoke the following verse:
"Night shall speak and give thee counsel, night shall give thee
victory." After this Themistokles dreamed a dream. He thought that a
snake was coiling itself upon his belly and crawling up towards his
throat. As soon as it reached his throat, it became an eagle and flapped
its wings, lifted him up, and carried him a long distance, until he saw
a golden herald's staff. The eagle set him down upon this securely, and
he felt free from all terror and anxiety. After this he was sent away by
Nikogenes, who made use of the following device. Most barbarian nations,
and the Persians especially, are violently jealous in their treatment of
women. They guard not only their wives, but their purchased slaves and
concubines, with the greatest care, not permitting them to be seen by
any one out of doors, but when they are at home they lock them up, and
when they are on a journey they place them in waggons with curtains all
round them. Such a waggon was prepared for Themistokles, and he
travelled in it, his escort telling all whom they met that they were
conveying a Greek lady from Ionia to one of the king's courtiers.