Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
"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,
It is said that one of the chief reasons which caused Themistokles to despair of success was his conviction that he could not surpass the courage and good fortune of Kimon. He therefore committed suicide, while Kimon, who was now revolving immense schemes of conquest as he lay at Cyprus with his fleet, sent an embassy to the shrine of Ammon to ask something secret.
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.
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,
Moreover Roxanes the chiliarch, as Themistokles passed by him in silence into the king's presence, whispered, "Thou subtle serpent of Greece, the king's good genius has led thee hither."
Neither Themistokles nor Miltiades had ever been so honoured. When Miltiades demanded the honour of an olive crown, Sophanes of Dekeleia rose up in the public assembly and said, "Miltiades, when you have fought and conquered the barbarians alone, you may ask to be honoured alone, but not before" a harsh speech, but one which perfectly expressed the feeling of the people.
At this, Architeles was much vexed, but Themistokles sent him a basket containing bread and meat, with a talent of silver hidden underneath it, with a message bidding him eat his supper and pay his men the next day, but that, if he did not, Themistokles would denounce him to his countrymen as having received bribes from the enemy. This we are told by Phanias of Lesbos.
He seized the interpreter, and by a decree of the people had him put to death, because he had dared to translate the commands of a barbarian into the language of free Greeks. He acted in the same way to Arthmias of Zelea. This man, at the instance of Themistokles, was declared infamous, he and his children and his descendants for ever, because he brought Persian gold among the Greeks.
Themistokles, disturbed at this, after praying to the goddess, left the highway and made a circuit by another road, avoiding that place; when it was night he encamped in the open country. As one of the sumpter cattle that carried his tent had fallen into a river, Themistokles's servants hung up the rich hangings, which were dripping with wet, in order to dry them.
On the other hand, some writers tell us that his father, wishing to dissuade him from taking part in politics, pointed out to him the old triremes lying abandoned on the beach, and told him that politicians, when the people had no farther use for them, were cast aside in like manner. III. Very early in life Themistokles took a vigorous part in public affairs, possessed by vehement ambition.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking