of Aristeidês was robbed of its due honor because he was the
first person who ἔταξε φοροὺς τοῖς Ἕλλησι (Pausan. viii, 52, 2).
Neither the assessment nor the name of Aristeidês was otherwise
than popular.
Aristotle employs the name of Aristeidês as a symbol of
unrivalled probity (Rhetoric. ii, 24, 2).
Respecting this first assessment, we scarcely know more than one
single fact,—the aggregate in money was four hundred and sixty
talents, equal to about one hundred and six thousand pounds sterling.
Of the items composing such aggregate,—of the individual cities which
paid it,—of the distribution of obligations to furnish ships and to
furnish money,—we are entirely ignorant: the little information which
we possess on these points relates to a period considerably later,
shortly before the Peloponnesian war, under the uncontrolled empire
then exercised by Athens. Thucydidês, in his brief sketch, makes
us clearly understand the difference between _presiding_ Athens,
with her autonomous and regularly assembled allies in 476 B. C.,
and _imperial_ Athens, with her subject allies in 432 B. C.; the
Greek word equivalent to _ally_ left either of these epithets to be
understood, by an ambiguity exceedingly convenient to the powerful
states,—and he indicates the general causes of the change: but he
gives us few particulars as to the modifying circumstances, and none
at all as to the first start. He tells us only that the Athenians
appointed a peculiar board of officers, called the Hellênotamiæ, to
receive and administer the common fund,—that Delos was constituted
the general treasury, where the money was to be kept,—and that the
payment thus levied was called the _phorus_;[536] a name which
appears then to have been first put into circulation, though
afterwards usual,—and to have conveyed at first no degrading import,
though it afterwards became so odious as to be exchanged for a more
innocent synonym.
[536] Thucyd. i, 95, 96.
Endeavoring as well as we can to conceive the Athenian alliance
in its infancy, we are first struck with the magnitude of the
total sum contributed; which will appear the more remarkable when
we reflect that many of the contributing cities furnished ships
besides. We may be certain that all which was done at first was
done by general consent, and by a freely determining majority: for
Athens, at the time when the Ionic allies besought her protection
against Spartan arrogance, could have had no power of constraining
unwilling parties, especially when the loss of supremacy, though
quietly borne, was yet fresh and rankling among the countrymen of
Pausanias. So large a total implies, from the very first, a great
number of contributing states, and we learn from hence to appreciate
the powerful, wide-spread, and voluntary movement which then brought
together the maritime and insular Greeks distributed throughout the
Ægean sea and the Hellespont. The Phenician fleet, and the Persian
land-force, might at any moment reappear, nor was there any hope of
resisting either except by confederacy: so that confederacy, under
such circumstances, became, with these exposed Greeks, not merely a
genuine feeling, but at that time the first of all their feelings.
It was their common fear, rather than Athenian ambition, which
gave birth to the alliance, and they were grateful to Athens for
organizing it. The public import of the name Hellênotamiæ, coined for
the occasion,—the selection of Delos as a centre, and the provision
for regular meetings of the members,—demonstrate the patriotic and
fraternal purpose which the league was destined to serve. In truth,
the protection of the Ægean sea against foreign maritime force and
lawless piracy, as well as that of the Hellespont and Bosphorus
against the transit of a Persian force, was a purpose essentially
public, for which all the parties interested were bound in equity to
provide by way of common contribution: any island or seaport which
might refrain from contributing, was a gainer at the cost of others:
and we cannot doubt that the general feeling of this common danger
as well as equitable obligation, at a moment when the fear of Persia
was yet serious, was the real cause which brought together so many
contributing members, and enabled the forward parties to shame into
concurrence such as were more backward. How the confederacy came to
be turned afterwards to the purposes of Athenian ambition, we shall
see at the proper time: but in its origin it was an equal alliance,
in so far as alliance between the strong and the weak can ever be
equal,—not an Athenian empire: nay, it was an alliance in which
every individual member was more exposed, more defenceless, and more
essentially benefited in the way of protection, than Athens. We have
here in truth one of the few moments in Grecian history wherein a
purpose at once common, equal, useful, and innocent, brought together
spontaneously many fragments of this disunited race, and overlaid for
a time that exclusive bent towards petty and isolated autonomy which
ultimately made slaves of them all. It was a proceeding equitable
and prudent, in principle as well as in detail; promising at the
time the most beneficent consequences,—not merely protection against
the Persians, but a standing police of the Ægean sea, regulated
by a common superintending authority. And if such promise was not
realized, we shall find that the inherent defects of the allies,
indisposing them to the hearty appreciation and steady performance of
their duties as equal confederates, are at least as much chargeable
with the failure as the ambition of Athens. We may add that, in
selecting Delos as a centre, the Ionic allies were conciliated by a
renovation of the solemnities which their fathers, in the days of
former freedom, had crowded to witness in that sacred island.
At the time when this alliance was formed, the Persians still held
not only the important posts of Eion on the Strymon and Doriskus in
Thrace, but also several other posts in that country,[537] which are
not specified to us. We may thus understand why the Greek cities
on and near the Chalkidic peninsula,—Argilus, Stageirus, Akanthus,
Skôlus, Olynthus, Spartôlus, etc.,—which we know to have joined under
the first assessment of Aristeidês, were not less anxious[538] to
seek protection in the bosom of the new confederacy, than the Dorian
islands of Rhodes and Kos, the Ionic islands of Samos and Chios,
the Æolic Lesbos and Tenedos, or continental towns such as Milêtus
and Byzantium: by all of whom adhesion to this alliance must have
been contemplated, in 477 or 476 B. C., as the sole condition of
emancipation from Persia. Nothing more was required, for the success
of a foreign enemy against Greece generally, than complete autonomy
of every Grecian city, small as well as great,—such as the Persian
monarch prescribed and tried to enforce ninety years afterwards,
through the Lacedæmonian Antalkidas, in the pacification which bears
the name of the latter: some sort of union, organized and obligatory
upon each city, was indispensable to the safety of all. Nor was it
by any means certain, at the time when the confederacy of Delos was
first formed, that, even with that aid, the Asiatic enemy would
be effectually kept out; especially as the Persians were strong,
not merely from their own force, but also from the aid of internal
parties in many of the Grecian states,—traitors within, as well as
exiles without.
[537] Herodot. vii, 106. ὕπαρχοι ἐν τῇ Θρηΐκῃ καὶ τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου
~πανταχῇ~. Οὗτοι ὦν ~πάντες~, οἵ τε ἐκ Θρηΐκης καὶ τοῦ
Ἑλλησπόντου, πλὴν τοῦ ἐν Δορίσκῳ, ὑπὸ Ἑλλήνων ὕστερον ταύτης τῆς
στρατηλασίης ἐξῃρέθησαν, etc.
[538] Thucyd. v, 18. Τὰς δὲ πόλεις, φερούσας τὸν φόρον τὸν ἐπ’
Ἀριστείδου, αὐτονόμους εἶναι.... εἰσὶ δὲ, Ἄργιλος, Στάγειρος,
Ἄκανθος, Σκῶλος, Ὄλυνθος, Σπάρτωλος.
Among these, the first in rank as well as the most formidable, was
the Spartan Pausanias. Summoned home from Byzantium to Sparta, in
order that the loud complaints against him might be examined, he
had been acquitted[539] of the charges of wrong and oppression
against individuals; yet the presumptions of _medism_, or treacherous
correspondence with the Persians, appeared so strong that, though
not found guilty, he was still not reappointed to the command. Such
treatment seems to have only emboldened him in the prosecution
of his designs against Greece, and he came out with this view to
Byzantium in a trireme belonging to Hermionê, under pretence of
aiding as a volunteer without any formal authority in the war. He
there resumed his negotiations with Artabazus: his great station
and celebrity still gave him a strong hold on men’s opinions, and
he appears to have established a sort of mastery in Byzantium, from
whence the Athenians, already recognized heads of the confederacy,
were constrained to expel him by force:[540] and we may be very sure
that the terror excited by his presence as well as by his known
designs tended materially to accelerate the organization of the
confederacy under Athens. He then retired to Kolônæ in the Troad,
where he continued for some time in the farther prosecution of his
schemes, trying to form a Persian party, despatching emissaries to
distribute Persian gold among various cities of Greece, and probably
employing the name of Sparta to impede the formation of the new
confederacy:[541] until at length the Spartan authorities, apprized
of his proceedings, sent a herald out to him, with peremptory
orders that he should come home immediately along with the herald:
if he disobeyed, “the Spartans would declare war against him,” or
constitute him a public enemy.
[539] Cornelius Nepos states that he was fined (Pausanias, c.
2), which is neither noticed by Thucydidês, nor at all probable,
looking at the subsequent circumstances connected with him.
[540] Thucyd. i, 130, 131. Καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Βυζαντίου βίᾳ ὑπὸ τῶν
Ἀθηναίων ἐκπολιορκηθεὶς, etc.: these words seem to imply that he
had acquired a strong position in the town.
[541] It is to this time that I refer the mission of Arthmius
of Zeleia (an Asiatic town, between Mount Ida and the southern
coast of the Propontis) to gain over such Greeks as he could by
means of Persian gold. In the course of his visit to Greece,
Arthmius went to Athens: his purpose was discovered, and he
was compelled to flee: while the Athenians, at the instance of
Themistoklês, passed an indignant decree, declaring him and his
race enemies of Athens, and of all the allies of Athens,—and
proclaiming that whoever should slay him would be guiltless;
because he had brought in Persian gold to bribe the Greeks. This
decree was engraven on a brazen column, and placed on record in
the acropolis, where it stood near the great statue of Athênê
Promachos, even in the time of Demosthenês and his contemporary
orators. See Demosthen. Philippic. iii, c. 9, p. 122, and De
Fals. Legat. c. 76, p. 428; Æschin. cont. Ktesiphont. ad fin.
Harpokrat. v. Ἄτιμος—Deinarchus cont. Aristogeiton, sects. 25, 26.
Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 6, and Aristeidês, tom. ii, p. 218)
tells us that Themistoklês proposed this decree against Arthmius
and caused it to be passed. But Plutarch refers it to the time
when Xerxes was on the point of invading Greece. Now it appears
to me that the incident cannot well belong to that point of time.
Xerxes did not rely upon bribes, but upon other and different
means, for conquering Greece: besides, the very tenor of the
decree shows that it must have been passed after the formation
of the confederacy of Delos,—for it pronounces Arthmius to be
an enemy of Athens and of all the allies of Athens. To a native
of Zeleia it might be a serious penalty to be excluded and
proscribed from all the cities in alliance with Athens; many
of them being on the coast of Asia. I know no point of time to
which the mission of Arthmius can be so conveniently referred
as this,—when Pausanias and Artabazus were engaged in this very
part of Asia, in contriving plots to get up a party in Greece.
Pausanias was thus engaged for some years,—before the banishment
of Themistoklês.
As the execution of this threat would have frustrated all the
ulterior schemes of Pausanias, he thought it prudent to obey; the
rather, as he felt entire confidence of escaping all the charges
against him at Sparta by the employment of bribes,[542] the means
for which were abundantly furnished to him through Artabazus. He
accordingly returned along with the herald, and was, in the first
moments of indignation, imprisoned by order of the ephors; who, it
seems, were legally competent to imprison him, even had he been king
instead of regent. But he was soon let out, on his own requisition,
and under a private arrangement with friends and partisans, to take
his trial against all accusers.[543] Even to stand forth as accuser
against so powerful a man was a serious peril: to undertake the proof
of specific matter of treason against him was yet more serious: nor
does it appear that any Spartan ventured to do either. It was known
that nothing short of the most manifest and invincible proof would
be held to justify his condemnation, and amidst a long chain of acts
carrying conviction when taken in the aggregate, there was no single
treason sufficiently demonstrable for the purpose. Accordingly,
Pausanias remained not only at large but unaccused, still audaciously
persisting both in his intrigues at home and his correspondence
abroad with Artabazus. He ventured to assail the unshielded side of
Sparta by opening negotiations with the Helots, and instigating them
to revolt; promising them both liberation and admission to political
privilege;[544] with a view, first, to destroy the board of ephors,
and render himself despot in his own country,—next, to acquire
through Persian help the supremacy of Greece. Some of those Helots
to whom he addressed himself revealed the plot to the ephors, who,
nevertheless, in spite of such grave peril, did not choose to take
measures against Pausanias upon no better information,—so imposing
was still his name and position. But though some few Helots might
inform, probably many others both gladly heard the proposition and
faithfully kept the secret: we shall find, by what happened a few
years afterwards, that there were a large number of them who had
their spears in readiness for revolt. Suspected as Pausanias was, yet
by the fears of some and the connivance of others, he was allowed
to bring his plans to the very brink of consummation; and his last
letters to Artabazus,[545] intimating that he was ready for action,
and bespeaking immediate performance of the engagements concerted
between them, were actually in the hands of the messenger. Sparta
was saved from an outbreak of the most formidable kind, not by the
prudence of her authorities, but by a mere accident, or rather by the
fact that Pausanias was not only a traitor to his country, but also
base and cruel in his private relations.
[542] Thucyd. i, 131. Ὁ δὲ βουλόμενος ὡς ἥκιστα ὕποπτος εἶναι καὶ
πιστεύων χρήμασι διαλύσειν τὴν διαβολὴν, ἀνεχώρει τὸ δεύτερον ἐς
Σπάρτην.
[543] Thucyd. i, 131. Καὶ ἐς μὲν τὴν εἱρκτὴν ἐσπίπτει τὸ πρῶτον
ὑπὸ τῶν ἐφόρων· ἔπειτα διαπραξάμενος ὕστερον ἐξῆλθε, καὶ
καθίστησιν ἑαυτὸν ἐς κρίσιν τοῖς βουλομένοις περὶ αὐτῶν ἐλέγχειν.
The word διαπραξάμενος indicates, first, that Pausanias
himself originated the efforts to get free,—next, that he
came to an underhand arrangement: very probably by a bribe,
though the word does not necessarily imply it. The Scholiast
says so, distinctly,—χρήμασι καὶ λόγοις διαπραξάμενος
δηλόνοτι διακρουσάμενος τὴν κατηγορίαν. Dr. Arnold translates
διαπραξάμενος, “having settled the business.”
[544] Aristotel. Politic. iv, 13, 13; v, 1, 5; v, 6, 2; Herodot.
v, 32. Aristotle calls Pausanias _king_, though he was only
_regent_: the truth is, that he had all the power of a Spartan
king, and seemingly more, if we compare his treatment with that
of the Prokleid king Leotychidês.
[545] Thucyd. i, 132. ὁ μέλλων ~τὰς τελευταίας~ βασιλεῖ ἐπιστολὰς
πρὸς Ἀρτάβαζον κομιεῖν, ἀνὴρ Ἀργίλιος, etc.
The messenger to whom these last letters were intrusted was a native
of Argilus in Thrace, a favorite and faithful slave of Pausanias;
once connected with him by that intimate relation which Grecian
manners tolerated, and admitted even to the full confidence of
his treasonable projects. It was by no means the intention of
this Argilian to betray his master; but, on receiving the letter
to carry, he recollected, with some uneasiness, that none of the
previous messengers had ever come back. Accordingly, he broke the
seal and read it, with the full view of carrying it forward to
its destination, if he found nothing inconsistent with his own
personal safety: he had farther taken the precaution to counterfeit
his master’s seal, so that he could easily reclose the letter.
On reading it, he found his suspicions confirmed by an express
injunction that the bearer was to be put to death,—a discovery which
left him no alternative except to deliver it to the ephors. But
those magistrates, who had before disbelieved the Helot informers,
still refused to believe even the confidential slave with his
master’s autograph and seal, and with the full account besides,
which doubtless he would communicate at the same time, of all that
had previously passed in the Persian correspondence, not omitting
copies of those letters between Pausanias and Xerxes, which I have
already cited from Thucydidês—for in no other way can they have
become public. Partly from the suspicion which, in antiquity, always
attached to the testimony of slaves, except when it was obtained
under the pretended guarantee of torture, partly from the peril of
dealing with so exalted a criminal,—the ephors would not be satisfied
with any evidence less than his own speech and their own ears. They
directed the Argilian slave to plant himself as a suppliant in the
sacred precinct of Poseidon, near Cape Tænarus, under the shelter of
a double tent, or hut, behind which two of them concealed themselves.
Apprized of this unexpected mark of alarm, Pausanias hastened to the
temple, and demanded the reason: upon which the slave disclosed his
knowledge of the contents of the letter, and complained bitterly
that, after long and faithful service,—with a secrecy never once
betrayed, throughout this dangerous correspondence,—he was at length
rewarded with nothing better than the same miserable fate which had
befallen the previous messengers. Pausanias, admitting all these
facts, tried to appease the slave’s disquietude, and gave him a
solemn assurance of safety if he would quit the sanctuary; urging him
at the same time to proceed on the journey forthwith, in order that
the schemes in progress might not be retarded.
All this passed within the hearing of the concealed ephors; who
at length thoroughly satisfied, determined to arrest Pausanias
immediately on his return to Sparta. They met him in the public
street, not far from the temple of Athênê Chalkiœkus (or of the
Brazen House); but as they came near, either their menacing looks, or
a significant nod from one of them, revealed to this guilty man their
purpose; and he fled for refuge to the temple, which was so near that
he reached it before they could overtake him. He planted himself
as a suppliant, far more hopeless than the Argilian slave whom he
had so recently talked over at Tænarus, in a narrow-roofed chamber
belonging to the sacred building; where the ephors, not warranted
in touching him, took off the roof, built up the doors, and kept
watch until he was on the point of death by starvation. According to
a current story,[546]—not recognized by Thucydidês, yet consistent
with Spartan manners,—his own mother was the person who placed the
first stone to build up the door, in deep abhorrence of his treason.
His last moments being carefully observed, he was brought away just
in time to expire without, and thus to avoid the desecration of the
temple. The first impulse of the ephors was to cast his body into the
ravine, or hollow, called the Kæadas, the usual place of punishment
for criminals: probably, his powerful friends averted this disgrace,
and he was buried not far off, until, some time afterwards, under the
mandate of the Delphian oracle, his body was exhumed and transported
to the exact spot where he had died. Nor was the oracle satisfied
even with this reinterment: pronouncing the whole proceeding to be a
profanation of the sanctity of Athênê, it enjoined that two bodies
should be presented to her as an atonement for the one carried away.
In the very early days of Greece,—or among the Carthaginians, even
at this period,—such an injunction would probably have produced the
slaughter of two human victims: on the present occasion, Athênê,
or Hikesius, the tutelary god of suppliants, was supposed to be
satisfied by two brazen statues; not, however, without some attempts
to make out that the expiation was inadequate.[547]
[546] Diodor. xi, 45; Cornel. Nepos, Pausan. c. 5; Polyæn. viii,
51.
[547] Thucyd. i, 133, 134: Pausanias, iii, 17, 9.
Thus perished a Greek who reached the pinnacle of renown simply
from the accidents of his lofty descent, and of his being general
at Platæa, where it does not appear that he displayed any superior
qualities. His treasonable projects implicated and brought to
disgrace a man far greater than himself, the Athenian Themistoklês.
The chronology of this important period is not so fully known as to
enable us to make out the full dates of particular events; but we
are obliged—in consequence of the subsequent events connected with
Themistoklês, whose flight to Persia is tolerably well marked as to
date—to admit an interval of about nine years between the retirement
of Pausanias from his command at Byzantium, and his death. To
suppose so long an interval engaged in treasonable correspondence,
is perplexing; and we can only explain it to ourselves very
imperfectly by considering that the Spartans were habitually slow
in their movements, and that the suspected regent may perhaps have
communicated with partisans, real or expected, in many parts of
Greece. Among those whom he sought to enlist as accomplices was
Themistoklês, still in great power,—though, as it would seem, in
declining power,—at Athens: and the charge of collusion with the
Persians connects itself with the previous movement of political
parties in that city.
The rivalry of Themistoklês and Aristeidês had been greatly
appeased by the invasion of Xerxes, which had imposed upon both the
peremptory necessity of coöperation against a common enemy. Nor was
it apparently resumed, during the times which immediately succeeded
the return of the Athenians to their country: at least we hear of
both in effective service, and in prominent posts. Themistoklês
stands forward as the contriver of the city walls and architect of
Peiræus: Aristeidês is commander of the fleet, and first organizer
of the confederacy of Delos. Moreover, we seem to detect a change
in the character of the latter: he had ceased to be the champion
of Athenian old-fashioned landed interest, against Themistoklês as
the originator of the maritime innovations. Those innovations had
now, since the battle of Salamis, become an established fact; a fact
of overwhelming influence on the destinies and character, public
as well as private, of the Athenians. During the exile at Salamis,
every man, rich or poor, landed proprietor or artisan, had been for
the time a seaman: and the anecdote of Kimon, who dedicated the
bridle of his horse in the acropolis, as a token that he was about
to pass from the cavalry to service on shipboard,[548] is a type
of that change of feeling which must have been impressed more or
less upon every rich man in Athens. From henceforward the fleet is
endeared to every man as the grand force, offensive and defensive,
of the state, in which character all the political leaders agree in
accepting it: we ought to add, at the same time, that this change
was attended with no detriment either to the land-force or to the
landed cultivation of Attica, both of which will be found to acquire
extraordinary development during the interval between the Persian
and Peloponnesian wars. Still, the triremes and the men who manned
them, taken collectively, were now the determining element in the
state: moreover, the men who manned them had just returned from
Salamis, fresh from a scene of trial and danger, and from a harvest
of victory, which had equalized for the moment all Athenians as
sufferers, as combatants, and as patriots. Such predominance of
the maritime impulse, having become pronounced immediately after
the return from Salamis, was farther greatly strengthened by the
construction and fortification of the Peiræus,—a new maritime Athens,
as large as the old inland city,—as well as by the unexpected
formation of the confederacy at Delos, with all its untried prospects
and stimulating duties.
[548] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 8.
The political change arising from hence in Athens was not less
important than the military. “The maritime multitude, authors of
the victory of Salamis,”[549] and instruments of the new vocation
of Athens as head of the Delian confederacy, appear now ascendant
in the political constitution also; not in any way as a separate or
privileged class, but as leavening the whole mass, strengthening
the democratical sentiment, and protesting against all recognized
political inequalities. In fact, during the struggle at Salamis,
the whole city of Athens had been nothing else than “a maritime
multitude,” among which the proprietors and chief men had been
confounded, until, by the efforts of all, the common country had been
reconquered: nor was it likely that this multitude, after a trying
period of forced equality, during which political privilege had been
effaced, would patiently acquiesce in the full restoration of such
privilege at home. We see by the active political sentiment of the
German people, after the great struggles of 1813 and 1814, how much
an energetic and successful military effort of the people at large,
blended with endurance of serious hardship, tends to stimulate the
sense of political dignity and the demand for developed citizenship:
and if this be the tendency even among a people habitually passive
on such subjects, much more was it to be expected in the Athenian
population, who had gone through a previous training of near thirty
years under the democracy of Kleisthenês. At the time when that
constitution was first established,[550] it was perhaps the most
democratical in Greece: it had worked extremely well and had diffused
among the people a sentiment favorable to equal citizenship and
unfriendly to avowed privilege: so that the impressions made by the
struggle at Salamis found the popular mind prepared to receive them.
Early after the return to Attica, the Kleisthenean constitution
was enlarged as respects eligibility to the magistracy. According
to that constitution, the fourth or last class on the Solonian
census, including the considerable majority of the freemen, were not
admissible to offices of state, though they possessed votes in common
with the rest: no person was eligible to be a magistrate unless
he belonged to one of the three higher classes. This restriction
was now annulled, and eligibility extended to all the citizens. We
may appreciate the strength of feeling with which such reform was
demanded, when we find that it was proposed by Aristeidês; a man the
reverse of what is called a demagogue, and a strenuous friend of
the Kleisthenean constitution. No political system would work after
the Persian war, which formally excluded “the maritime multitude”
from holding magistracy. I rather imagine, as has been stated in the
previous volume, that election of magistrates was still retained,
and not exchanged for drawing lots until a certain time, though
not a long time, afterwards. That which the public sentiment first
demanded was the recognition of the equal and open principle: after
a certain length of experience, it was found that poor men, though
legally qualified to be chosen, were in point of fact rarely chosen:
then came the lot, to give them an equal chance with the rich. The
principle of sortition, or choice by lot, was never applied, as I
have before remarked, to all offices at Athens,—never, for example,
to the stratêgi, or generals, whose functions were more grave and
responsible than those of any other person in the service of the
state, and who always continued to be elected by show of hands.
[549] Aristotel. Politic. v, 3, 5. Καὶ πάλιν ~ὁ ναυτικὸς ὄχλος~,
γενόμενος αἴτιος τῆς περὶ Σαλαμῖνα νίκης, καὶ διὰ ταύτης τῆς
ἡγεμονίας καὶ διὰ τὴν κατὰ θάλασσαν δύναμιν, τὴν δημοκατίαν
ἰσχυροτέραν ἐποίησεν.
Ὁ ναυτικὸς ὄχλος (Thucyd. viii, 72 and _passim_).
[550] For the constitution of Kleisthenês, see vol. iv, of this
History, ch. xxxi, p. 142, _seqq._
In the new position into which Athens was now thrown, with so great
an extension of what may be termed her foreign relations, and with a
confederacy which imposed the necessity of distant military service,
the functions of the stratêgi naturally tended to become both more
absorbing and complicated; while the civil administration became more
troublesome, if not more difficult, from the enlargement of the city,
and the still greater enlargement of Peiræus,—leading to an increase
of town population, and especially to an increase of the metics, or
resident non-freemen. And it was probably about this period, during
the years immediately succeeding the battle of Salamis,—when the
force of old habit and tradition had been partially enfeebled by so
many stirring novelties,—that the archons were withdrawn altogether
from political and military duties, and confined to civil or judicial
administration. At the battle of Marathon, the polemarch is a
military commander, president of the ten stratêgi:[551] we know
him afterwards only as a civil magistrate, administering justice
to the metics, or non-freemen, while the stratêgi perform military
duties without him. I conceive that this alteration, indicating as it
does a change in the character of the archons generally, must have
taken place at the time which we have now reached,[552]—a time when
the Athenian establishments on all sides required a more elaborate
distribution of functionaries. The distribution of so many Athenian
boards of functionaries, part to do duty in the city, and part in the
Peiræus, cannot have commenced until after this period, when Peiræus
had been raised by Themistoklês to the dignity of town, fortress,
and state-harbor. Such boards were the astynomi and agoranomi, who
maintained the police of streets and markets,—the metronomi, who
watched over weights and measures,—the sitophylakes, who carried into
effect various state regulations respecting the custody and sale of
corn,—with various others who acted not less in Peiræus than in the
city.[553] We may presume that each of these boards was originally
created as the exigency appeared to call for it, at a period later
than that which we have now reached, most of these duties of detail
having been at first discharged by the archons, and afterwards, when
these latter became too full of occupation, confided to separate
administrators. The special and important change which characterized
the period immediately succeeding the battle of Salamis, was the more
accurate line drawn between the archons and the stratêgi; assigning
the foreign and military department entirely to the stratêgi, and
rendering the archons purely civil magistrates,—administrative as
well as judicial; while the first creation of the separate boards
above named was probably an ulterior enlargement, arising out of
increase of population, power, and trade, between the Persian and
Peloponnesian wars. It was by some such steps that the Athenian
administration gradually attained that complete development which it
exhibits in practice during the century from the Peloponnesian war
downward, to which nearly all our positive and direct information
relates.
[551] Herod. vi, 109.
[552] Aristotel. Πολιτειῶν Fragm. xlvii, ed. Neumann;
Harpokration, v. Πολέμαρχος; Pollux, viii, 91: compare Meier und
Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, ch. ii, p. 50, _seqq._
[553] See Aristotel. Πολιτειῶν Fragm. ii, v, xxiii, xxxviii, l,
ed. Neumann; Schömann, Antiqq. Jur. Publ. Græc. c. xli, xlii,
xliii.
With this expansion both of democratical feeling and of military
activity at Athens, Aristeidês appears to have sympathized; and
the popularity thus insured to him, probably heightened by some
regret for his previous ostracism, was calculated to acquire
permanence from his straightforward and incorruptible character,
now brought into strong relief from his function as assessor to
the new Delian confederacy. On the other hand, the ascendency of
Themistoklês, though so often exalted by his unrivalled political
genius and daring, as well as by the signal value of his public
recommendations, was as often overthrown by his duplicity of means
and unprincipled thirst for money. New political opponents sprung
up against him, men sympathizing with Aristeidês, and far more
violent in their antipathy than Aristeidês himself. Of these, the
chief were Kimon—son of Miltiades—and Alkmæon; moreover, it seems
that the Lacedæmonians, though full of esteem for Themistoklês
immediately after the battle of Salamis, had now become extremely
hostile to him,—a change which may be sufficiently explained from his
stratagem respecting the fortifications of Athens, and his subsequent
ambitious projects in reference to the Peiræus. The Lacedæmonian
influence, then not inconsiderable in Athens, was employed to second
the political combinations against him.[554] He is said to have
given offence by manifestations of personal vanity,—by continual
boasting of his great services to the state, and by the erection
of a private chapel, close to his own house, in honor of Artemis
Aristobulê, or Artemis of admirable counsel; just as Pausanias had
irritated the Lacedæmonians by inscribing his own single name on the
Delphian tripod, and as the friends of Aristeidês had displeased the
Athenians by endless encomiums upon his justice.[555] But the main
cause of his discredit was, the prostitution of his great influence
for arbitrary and corrupt purposes. In the unsettled condition of
so many different Grecian communities, recently emancipated from
Persia, when there was past misrule to avenge, wrong-doers to
be deposed and perhaps punished, exiles to be restored, and all
the disturbance and suspicions accompanying so great a change of
political condition as well as of foreign policy,—the influence of
the leading men at Athens must have been great in determining the
treatment of particular individuals. Themistoklês, placed at the head
of an Athenian squadron and sailing among the islands, partly for
the purposes of war against Persia, partly for organizing the new
confederacy,—is affirmed to have accepted bribes without scruple,
for executing sentences just and unjust,—restoring some citizens,
expelling others, and even putting some to death. We learn this
from a friend and guest of Themistoklês,—the poet Timokreon of
Ialysus in Rhodes, who had expected his own restoration from the
Athenian commander, but found that it was thwarted by a bribe of
three talents from his opponents; so that he was still kept in exile
on the charge of _medism_. The assertions of Timokreon, personally
incensed on this ground against Themistoklês, are doubtless to be
considered as passionate and exaggerated: nevertheless, they are a
valuable memorial of the feelings of the time, and are far too much
in harmony with the general character of this eminent man to allow
of our disbelieving them entirely. Timokreon is as emphatic in his
admiration of Aristeidês as in his censure of Themistoklês, whom he
denounces as “a lying and unjust traitor.”[556]
[554] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 16; Scholion 2, ad Aristophan. Equit.
84.
[555] Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 22; Kimon, c. 5-8; Aristeidês,
c. 25); Diodorus, xi, 54.
[556] Plutarch, Themist. c. 21
Such conduct as that described by this new Archilochus, even making
every allowance for exaggeration, must have caused Themistoklês to
be both hated and feared among the insular allies, whose opinion was
now of considerable importance to the Athenians. A similar sentiment
grew up partially against him in Athens itself, and appears to have
been connected with suspicions of treasonable inclinations towards
the Persians. As the Persians could offer the highest bribes, a man
open to corruption might naturally be suspected of inclinations
towards their cause; and if Themistoklês had rendered preëminent
service against them, so also had Pausanias, whose conduct had
undergone so fatal a change for the worse. It was the treason of
Pausanias, suspected and believed against him by the Athenians even
when he was in command at Byzantium, though not proved against him
at Sparta until long afterwards,—which first seems to have raised
the presumption of _medism_ against Themistoklês also, when combined
with the corrupt proceedings which stained his public conduct: we
must recollect, also, that Themistoklês had given some color to
these presumptions, even by the stratagems in reference to Xerxes,
which wore a double-faced aspect, capable of being construed either
in a Persian or in a Grecian sense. The Lacedæmonians, hostile to
Themistoklês since the time when he had outwitted them respecting the
walls of Athens,—and fearing him also as a supposed accomplice of the
suspected Pausanias,—procured the charge of _medism_ to be preferred
against him at Athens; by secret instigations, and, as it is said, by
bribes, to his political opponents.[557] But no satisfactory proof
could be furnished of the accusation, which Themistoklês himself
strenuously denied, not without emphatic appeals to his illustrious
services. In spite of violent invectives against him from Alkmæon
and Kimon, tempered, indeed, by a generous moderation on the part
of Aristeidês,[558] his defence was successful. He carried the
people with him and was acquitted of the charge. Nor was he merely
acquitted, but, as might naturally be expected, a reaction took
place in his favor: his splendid qualities and exploits were brought
impressively before the public mind, and he seemed for the time to
acquire greater ascendency than ever.[559]
[557] This accusation of treason brought against Themistoklês
at Athens, _prior to his ostracism_, and at the instigation of
the Lacedæmonians,—is mentioned by Diodorus (xi, 54). Thucydidês
and Plutarch take notice only of the second accusation, _after_
his ostracism. But Diodorus has made his narrative confused,
by supposing the first accusation preferred at Athens to have
come after the full detection of Pausanias and exposure of his
correspondence; whereas these latter events, coming after the
first accusation, supplied new proofs before unknown, and thus
brought on the second, after Themistoklês had been ostracized.
But Diodorus has preserved to us the important notice of this
first accusation at Athens, followed by trial, acquittal, and
temporary glorification of Themistoklês,—and preceding his
ostracism.
The indictment stated by Plutarch to have been preferred against
Themistoklês by Leôbotas son of Alkmæon, at the instance of the
Spartans, probably relates to the first accusation at which
Themistoklês was acquitted. For when Themistoklês was arraigned
after the discovery of Pausanias, he did not choose to stay,
nor was there any actual trial: it is not, therefore, likely
that the name of the accuser would be preserved,—Ὁ δὲ γραψάμενος
αὐτὸν προδοσίας Λεωβώτης ἦν Ἀλκμαίωνος, ἅμα συνεπαιτιωμένων τῶν
Σπαρτιατῶν (Plutarch, Themist. c. 23).
Compare the second Scholion on Aristophan. Equit. 84, and
Aristeidês, Orat. xlvi, Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων (vol. ii, p. 318, ed.
Dindorf, p. 243, Jebb).
[558] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 25.
[559] Diodor. xi, 54. ~τότε μὲν~ ἀπέφυγε τὴν τῆς προδοσίας
κρίσιν· διὸ καὶ τὸ μὲν πρῶτον μετὰ τὴν ἀπόλυσιν μέγας ἦν παρὰ
τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις· ἠγάπων γὰρ αὐτὸν διαφερόντως οἱ πολῖται· ~μετὰ
δὲ ταῦτα~, οἱ μὲν, φοβηθέντες αὐτοῦ τὴν ὑπερβολὴν, οἱ δὲ,
φθονήσαντες τῇ δόξῃ, τῶν μὲν εὐεργεσιῶν ἐπελάθοντο, τὴν δὲ ἴσχυν
καὶ τὸ φρόνημα ταπεινοῦν ἔσπευδον.
Such a charge, and such a failure, must have exasperated to the
utmost the animosity between him and his chief opponents,—Aristeidês,
Kimon, Alkmæon, and others; nor can we wonder that they were anxious
to get rid of him by ostracism. In explaining this peculiar process,
I have already stated that it could never be raised against any one
individual separately and ostensibly,—and that it could never be
brought into operation at all, unless its necessity were made clear,
not merely to violent party men, but also to the assembled senate
and people, including, of course, a considerable proportion of the
more moderate citizens. We may well conceive that the conjuncture was
deemed by many dispassionate Athenians well suited for the tutelary
intervention of ostracism, the express benefit of which consisted
in its separating political opponents when the antipathy between
them threatened to push one or the other into extra-constitutional
proceedings,—especially when one of those parties was Themistoklês,
a man alike vast in his abilities and unscrupulous in his morality.
Probably also there were not a few who wished to revenge the
previous ostracism of Aristeidês: and lastly, the friends of
Themistoklês himself, elate with his acquittal and his seemingly
augmented popularity, might indulge hopes that the vote of ostracism
would turn out in his favor, and remove one or other of his chief
political opponents. From all these circumstances we learn without
astonishment, that a vote of ostracism was soon after resorted to. It
ended in the temporary banishment of Themistoklês.
He retired into exile, and was residing at Argos, whither he carried
a considerable property, yet occasionally visiting other parts
of Peloponnesus,[560]—when the exposure and death of Pausanias,
together with the discovery of his correspondence, took place
at Sparta. Among this correspondence were found proofs, which
Thucydidês seems to have considered as real and sufficient, of the
privity of Themistoklês. According to Ephorus and others, he is
admitted to have been solicited by Pausanias, and to have known his
plans,—but to have kept them secret while refusing to coöperate
in them,[561]—but probably after his exile he took a more decided
share in them than before; being well-placed for that purpose at
Argos, a city not only unfriendly to Sparta, but strongly believed
to have been in collusion with Xerxes at his invasion of Greece. On
this occasion the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens, publicly to prefer
a formal charge of treason against him, and to urge the necessity
of trying him as a Pan-Hellenic criminal before the synod of the
allies assembled at Sparta.[562] Whether this latter request would
have been granted, or whether Themistoklês would have been tried at
Athens, we cannot tell: for no sooner was he apprized that joint
envoys from Sparta and Athens had been despatched to arrest him, than
he fled forthwith from Argos to Korkyra. The inhabitants of that
island, though owing gratitude to him and favorably disposed, could
not venture to protect him against the two most powerful states in
Greece, but sent him to the neighboring continent. Here, however,
being still tracked and followed by the envoys, he was obliged to
seek protection from a man whom he had formerly thwarted in a demand
at Athens, and who had become his personal enemy,—Admêtus, king of
the Molossians. Fortunately for him, at the moment when he arrived,
Admêtus was not at home; and Themistoklês, becoming a suppliant to
his wife, conciliated her sympathy so entirely, that she placed
her child in his arms and planted him at the hearth in the full
solemnity of supplication to soften her husband. As soon as Admêtus
returned, Themistoklês revealed his name, his pursuers, and his
danger,—entreating protection as a helpless suppliant in the last
extremity. He appealed to the generosity of the Epirotic prince not
to take revenge on a man now defenceless, for offence given under
such very different circumstances; and for an offence too, after all,
not of capital moment, while the protection now entreated was to the
suppliant a matter of life or death. Admêtus raised him up from the
hearth with the child in his arms,—an evidence that he accepted the
appeal and engaged to protect him; refusing to give him up to the
envoys, and at last only sending him away on the expression of his
own wish to visit the king of Persia. Two Macedonian guides conducted
him across the mountains to Pydna, in the Thermaic gulf, where he
found a merchant-ship about to set sail for the coast of Asia Minor,
and took a passage on board; neither the master nor the crew knowing
his name. An untoward storm drove the vessel to the island of Naxos,
at that moment besieged by an Athenian armament: had he been forced
to land there, he would of course have been recognized and seized,
but his wonted subtlety did not desert him. Having communicated both
his name and the peril which awaited him, he conjured the master of
the ship to assist in saving him, and not to suffer any one of the
crew to land; menacing that if by any accident he were discovered, he
would bring the master to ruin along with himself, by representing
him as an accomplice induced by money to facilitate the escape of
Themistoklês: on the other hand, in case of safety, he promised a
large reward. Such promises and threats weighed with the master,
who controlled his crew, and forced them to beat about during a
day and a night off the coast, without seeking to land. After that
dangerous interval, the storm abated, and the ship reached Ephesus in
safety.[563]
[560] Thucyd. i, 137. ἦλθε γὰρ αὐτῷ ὕστερον ἔκ τε Ἀθηνῶν παρὰ τῶν
φίλων, καὶ ἐξ Ἄργους ἃ ~ὑπεξέκειτο~, etc.
I follow Mr. Fynes Clinton, in considering the year 471 B. C. to
be the date of the ostracism of Themistoklês. It may probably
be so, nor is there any evidence positively to contradict it:
but I think Mr. Clinton states it too confidently, as he admits
that Diodorus includes, in the chapters which he devotes to one
archon, events which must have happened in several different
years (see Fast. Hellen. B. C. 471).
After the expedition under the command of Pausanias in 478 B.
C., we have no one date at once certain and accurate, until
we come to the death of Xerxes, where Diodorus is confirmed
by the Canon of the Persian kings, B. C. 465. This last event
determines by close approximation and inference, the flight of
Themistoklês, the siege of Naxos, and the death of Pausanias: for
the other events of this period, we are reduced to a more vague
approximation, and can ascertain little beyond their order of
succession.
[561] Thucyd. i, 135; Ephorus ap. Plutarch. de Malign. Herodoti,
c. 5, p. 855; Diodor. xi, 54; Plutarch, Themist. c. 23.
[562] Diodor. xi, 55.
[563] Thucyd. i, 137. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 8) for the
most part follows Thucydidês, and professes to do so; yet he
is not very accurate, especially about the relations between
Themistoklês and Admêtus. Diodorus (xi, 56) seems to follow
chiefly other guides: also to a great extent Plutarch (Themist.
c. 24-26). There were evidently different accounts of his voyage,
which represented him as reaching, not Ephesus, but the Æolic
Kymê. Diodorus does not notice his voyage by sea.
Thus did Themistoklês, after a series of perils, find himself safe
on the Persian side of the Ægean. At Athens, he was proclaimed
a traitor, and his property confiscated: nevertheless, as it
frequently happened in cases of confiscation, his friends secreted
a considerable sum, and sent it over to him in Asia, together with
the money which he had left at Argos; so that he was thus enabled
liberally to reward the ship-captain who had preserved him. With all
this deduction, the property which he possessed of a character not
susceptible of concealment, and which was therefore actually seized,
was found to amount to eighty talents, according to Theophrastus,—to
one hundred talents, according to Theopompus. In contrast with this
large sum, it is melancholy to learn that he had begun his political
career with a property not greater than three talents.[564] The
poverty of Aristeidês at the end of his life presents an impressive
contrast to the enrichment of his rival.
[564] Plutarch, Themist. c. 25; also Kritias ap. Ælian. V. H. x,
17: compare Herodot. viii, 12.
The escape of Themistoklês, and his adventures in Persia, appear
to have formed a favorite theme for the fancy and exaggeration of
authors a century afterwards: we have thus many anecdotes which
contradict either directly or by implication the simple narrative of
Thucydidês. Thus we are told that at the moment when he was running
away from the Greeks, the Persian king also had proclaimed a reward
of two hundred talents for his head, and that some Greeks on the
coast of Asia were watching to take him for this reward: that he was
forced to conceal himself strictly near the coast, until means were
found to send him up to Susa in a closed litter, under pretence that
it was a woman for the king’s harem: that Mandanê, sister of Xerxes,
insisted upon having him delivered up to her as an expiation for the
loss of her son at the battle of Salamis: that he learned Persian so
well, and discoursed in it so eloquently, as to procure for himself
an acquittal from the Persian judges, when put upon his trial through
the importunity of Mandanê: that the officers of the king’s household
at Susa, and the satraps in his way back, threatened him with still
farther perils: that he was admitted to see the king in person, after
having received a lecture from the chamberlain on the indispensable
duty of falling down before him to do homage, etc., with several
other uncertified details,[565] which make us value more highly the
narrative of Thucydidês. Indeed, Ephorus, Deinô, Kleitarchus, and
Herakleidês, from whom these anecdotes appear mostly to be derived,
even affirmed that Themistoklês had found Xerxes himself alive and
seen him: whereas, Thucydidês and Charon, the two contemporary
authors, for the former is _nearly_ contemporary, asserted that he
had found Xerxes recently dead, and his son Artaxerxes on the throne.
[565] Diodor. xi, 56; Plutarch, Themist. c. 24-30.
According to Thucydidês, the eminent exile does not seem to have
been exposed to the least danger in Persia. He presented himself as
a deserter from Greece, and was accepted as such: moreover,—what is
more strange, though it seems true,—he was received as an actual
benefactor of the Persian king, and a sufferer from the Greeks on
account of such dispositions,—in consequence of his communications
made to Xerxes respecting the intended retreat of the Greeks
from Salamis, and respecting the contemplated destruction of the
Hellespontine bridge. He was conducted by some Persians on the coast
up to Susa, where he addressed a letter to the king couched in the
following terms, such as probably no modern European king would
tolerate except from a Quaker: “I, Themistoklês, am come to thee,
having done to thy house more mischief than any other Greek, as
long as I was compelled in my own defence to resist the attack of
thy father,—but having also done him yet greater good, when I could
do so with safety to myself, and when his retreat was endangered.
Reward is yet owing to me for my past service: moreover, I am now
here, chased away by the Greeks, in consequence of my attachment to
thee,[566] but able still to serve thee with great effect. I wish to
wait a year, and then to come before thee in person to explain my
views.”
[566] “Proditionem _ultrò imputabant_ (says Tacitus, Hist. ii,
60, respecting Paullinus and Proculus, the generals of the army
of Otho, when they surrendered to Vitellius after the defeat at
Bebriacum), spatium longi ante prœlium itineris, fatigationem
Othonianorum, permixtum vehiculis agmen, ac _pleraque fortuita
fraudi suæ assignantes_.—Et Vitellius credidit de perfidiâ, et
fraudem absolvit.”
Whether the Persian interpreters, who read this letter to Artaxerxes
Longimanus, exactly rendered its brief and direct expression, we
cannot say. But it made a strong impression upon him, combined with
the previous reputation of the writer, and he willingly granted the
prayer for delay: though we shall not readily believe that he was
so transported as to show his joy by immediate sacrifice to the
gods, by an unusual measure of convivial indulgence, and by crying
out thrice in his sleep, “I have got Themistoklês the Athenian,”—as
some of Plutarch’s authors informed him.[567] In the course of
the year granted, Themistoklês had learned so much of the Persian
language and customs as to be able to communicate personally with
the king, and acquire his confidence: no Greek, says Thucydidês,
had ever before attained such a commanding influence and position
at the Persian court. His ingenuity was now displayed in laying out
schemes for the subjugation of Greece to Persia, which were eminently
captivating to the monarch, who rewarded him with a Persian wife
and large presents, sending him down to Magnesia, on the Mæander,
not far from the coast of Ionia. The revenues of the district round
that town, amounting to the large sum of fifty talents yearly, were
assigned to him for bread: those of the neighboring seaport of Myus,
for articles of condiment to his bread, which was always accounted
the main nourishment: those of Lampsakus on the Hellespont, for
wine.[568] Not knowing the amount of these two latter items, we
cannot determine how much revenue Themistoklês received altogether:
but there can be no doubt; judging from the revenues of Magnesia
alone, that he was a great pecuniary gainer by his change of country.
After having visited various parts of Asia,[569] he lived for a
certain time at Magnesia, in which place his family joined him from
Athens. How long his residence at Magnesia lasted we do not know,
but seemingly long enough to acquire local estimation and leave
mementos behind him. He at length died of sickness, when sixty-five
years old, without having taken any step towards the accomplishment
of those victorious campaigns which he had promised to Artaxerxes.
That sickness was the real cause of his death, we may believe on the
distinct statement of Thucydidês;[570] who at the same time notices
a rumor partially current in his own time, of poison voluntarily
taken, from painful consciousness on the part of Themistoklês himself
that the promises made could never be performed,—a farther proof of
the general tendency to surround the last years of this distinguished
man with impressive adventures, and to dignify his last moments with
a revived feeling, not unworthy of his earlier patriotism. The report
may possibly have been designedly circulated by his friends and
relatives, in order to conciliate some tenderness towards his memory
(his sons still continued citizens at Athens, and his daughters
were married there). These friends farther stated that they had
brought back his bones to Attica, at his own express command, and
buried them privately without the knowledge of the Athenians; no
condemned traitor being permitted to be buried in Attic soil. If,
however, we even suppose that this statement was true, no one could
point out with certainty the spot wherein such interment had taken
place: nor does it seem, when we mark the cautious expressions of
Thucydidês,[571] that he himself was satisfied of the fact: moreover,
we may affirm with confidence that the inhabitants of Magnesia, when
they showed the splendid sepulchral monument erected in honor of
Themistoklês in their own market-place, were persuaded that his bones
were really inclosed within it.
[567] Plutarch, Themist. c. 28.
[568] Thucyd. i, 138; Diodor. xi, 57. Besides the three
above-named places, Neanthês and Phanias described the grant as
being still fuller and more specific: they stated that Perkôtê
was granted to Themistoklês for bedding, and Palæskêpsis for
clothing (Plutarch, Themist. c. 29; Athenæus, i, p. 29).
This seems to have been a frequent form of grants from the
Persian and Egyptian kings, to their queens, relatives, or
friends,—a grant nominally to supply some particular want or
taste: see Dr. Arnold’s note on the passage of Thucydidês. I
doubt his statement, however, about the land-tax, or rent; I do
not think that it was a tenth or a fifth of the produce of the
soil in these districts which was granted to Themistoklês, but
the portion of regal revenue, or tribute, levied in them. The
Persian kings did not take the trouble to assess and collect the
tribute: they probably left that to the inhabitants themselves,
provided the sum total were duly paid.
[569] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 31. πλανώμενος περὶ τὴν Ἀσίαν:
this statement seems probable enough, though Plutarch rejects it.
[570] Thucyd. i, 138. Νοσήσας δὲ τελευτᾷ τὸν βίον· λέγουσι δέ
τινες καὶ ἑκούσιον φαρμάκῳ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν, ἀδύνατον νομίσαντα
εἶναι ἐπιτελέσαι βασιλεῖ ἃ ὑπέσχετο.
This current story, as old as Aristophanês (Equit. 83, compare
the Scholia), alleged that Themistoklês had poisoned himself by
drinking bull’s blood (see Diodor. xi, 58), who assigns to this
act of taking poison a still more sublime patriotic character
by making it part of a design on the part of Themistoklês to
restrain the Persian king from warring against Greece.
Plutarch (Themist. c. 31, and Kimon, c. 18) and Diodorus both
state, as an unquestionable fact, that Themistoklês died by
poisoning himself: omitting even to notice the statement of
Thucydidês, that he died of disease. Cornelius Nepos (Themist.
c. 10) follows Thucydidês. Cicero (Brutus, c. 11) refers the
story of the suicide by poison to Clitarchus and Stratoklês,
recognizing it as contrary to Thucydidês. He puts into the mouth
of his fellow dialogist, Atticus, a just rebuke of the facility
with which historical truth was sacrificed to rhetorical purpose.
[571] Thucyd. i, 138. τὰ δὲ ὀστᾶ ~φασὶ κομισθῆναι αὐτοῦ οἱ
προσήκοντες οἴκαδε κελεύσαντος ἐκείνου~, καὶ τεθῆναι κρύφα
Ἀθηναίων ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ· οὐ γὰρ ἐξῆν θάπτειν, ὡς ἐπὶ προδοσίᾳ
φεύγοντος.
Cornelius Nepos, who here copies Thucydidês, gives this statement
by mistake, as if Thucydidês had himself affirmed it: “Idem (sc.
Thucydidês) ossa ejus clam in Atticâ ab amicis sepulta, quoniam
legibus non concederetur, quod proditionis esset damnatus,
memoriæ prodidit.” This shows the haste or inaccuracy with which
these secondary authors so often cite: Thucydidês is certainly
not a witness _for_ the fact: if anything, he may be said to
count somewhat against it.
Plutarch (Themist. c. 32) shows that the burial-place of
Themistoklês, supposed to be in Attica, was yet never verified
before his time: the guides of Pausanias, however, in the
succeeding century, had become more confident (Pausanias, i, 1,
3).
Aristeidês died about three or four years after the ostracism of
Themistoklês;[572] but respecting the place and manner of his death,
there were several contradictions among the authors whom Plutarch
had before him. Some affirmed that he perished on foreign service in
the Euxine sea; others, that he died at home, amidst the universal
esteem and grief of his fellow-citizens. A third story, confined
to the single statement of Kraterus, and strenuously rejected by
Plutarch, represents Aristeidês as having been falsely accused before
the Athenian judicature and condemned to a fine of fifty minæ, on
the allegation of having taken bribes during the assessment of the
tribute upon the allies,—which fine he was unable to pay, and was
therefore obliged to retire to Ionia, where he died. Dismissing
this last story, we find nothing certain about his death except one
fact,—but that fact at the same time the most honorable of all,—that
he died very poor. It is even asserted that he did not leave enough
to pay funeral expenses,—that a sepulchre was provided for him at
Phalêrum at the public cost, besides a handsome donation to his son
Lysimachus, and a dowry to each of his two daughters. In the two or
three ensuing generations, however, his descendants still continued
poor, and even at that remote day, some of them received aid out
of the public purse, from the recollection of their incorruptible
ancestor. Near a century and a half afterwards, a poor man, named
Lysimachus, descendant of the just Aristeidês, was to be seen at
Athens, near the chapel of Iacchus, carrying a mysterious tablet, and
obtaining his scanty fee of two oboli for interpreting the dreams of
the passers by: Demetrius the Phalerean procured from the people, for
the mother and aunt of this poor man, a small daily allowance.[573]
On all these points the contrast is marked when we compare Aristeidês
with Themistoklês. The latter, having distinguished himself by
ostentatious cost at Olympia, and by a choregic victory at Athens,
with little scruple as to the means of acquisition,—ended his life
at Magnesia in dishonorable affluence, greater than ever, and left
an enriched posterity both at that place and at Athens. More than
five centuries afterwards, his descendant, the Athenian Themistoklês,
attended the lectures of the philosopher Ammonius at Athens, as the
comrade and friend of Plutarch himself.[574]
[572] Respecting the probity of Aristeidês, see an interesting
fragment of Eupolis, the comic writer (Δῆμοι, Fragm, iv, p. 457,
ed. Meineke).
[573] Plutarch, Arist. c. 26, 27; Cornelius Nepos. Arist. c. 3:
compare Aristophan. Vesp. 53.
[574] Plutarch, Themist. c. 5-32.