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equipage and entertainments, in his rich tents and furniture, that he strove to outdo Cimon, he displeased the Greeks, who thought that such magnificence might be allowed in one who was a young man and of a great family, but was a mere piece of insolence in one as yet undistinguished and without title or means for making any such display. In a dramatic contest the tragedy he paid for won the prize, which was even so early as this a matter that excited much emulation, and he put up a tablet in record of it, with the inscription, “Themistocles of Phrearrhi paid the cost of it; Phrynichus made it; Adimantus was archon." However, he was well liked by the common people; would salute every particular citizen by his own name, and always showed himself a just judge in questions of business between private men. He said to Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired of him, when he was commander of the army, something that was not reasonable, "Simonides, you would be no good poet if you wrote false measure, nor should I be a good magistrate if for favour I made false law." And at another time, laughing at Simonides, he said that he was a man of little judgment to speak against the Corinthians, who were inhabitants of a great city, and to have his own picture drawn so often, having so ill-looking a face. And Ostra gradually growing to be great, and winning the favour Aristi- of the people, he at last with his faction gained the day B.C. 483. Over that of Aristides, and procured his banishment by

cism of

des,

ostracism.

6. When the king of Persia was now advancing against Greece, and the Athenians were in consultation who should be general, and many withdrew themselves of

their own accord, being terrified with the greatness of the danger, there was one Epicydes, son of Euphemides, a popular speaker, a man of an eloquent tongue, but of a faint heart and a slave to riches, who was desirous of the command, and was looked upon to be in a fair way to carry it by the show of hands. But Themistocles, fearing that, if the command should fall into such hands, all would be lost, bought off Epicydes and his pretensions, it is said, for a sum of money. When the king sent messengers into Greece, with an interpreter, to demand earth and water, as an acknowledgment of subjection, Themistocles, by a decree of the people, seized upon the interpreter and put him to death, for presuming to publish the barbarian orders and decrees in the Greek language. This is one of the actions he is commended for, as also for what he did to Arthmius of Zelea, who brought gold from the king of Persia to corrupt the Greeks, and was, by an order from Themistocles, degraded and disfranchised, he and his children and his posterity. But that which most of all redounded to his credit was, that he put an end to all the civil wars of Greece, composed their differences, and persuaded them to lay aside all enmity during the war with the Persians; and in this great work Chileus the Arcadian was, it is said, of great assistance to him.

Having received the command of the Athenian forces, 7 he immediately endeavoured to persuade the citizens to leave the city and to embark upon their galleys, and meet the Persians as far away as they could from Greece; but, many being against this, he led a large force, together with the Lacedæmonians, into Tempe, that in this pass they might maintain the safety of Thessaly,

which had not as yet declared for the king. But when they returned without performing anything, and it was known that not only the Thessalians, but all as far as Boeotia, was going over to Xerxes, then the Athenians more willingly hearkened to the advice of Themistocles to fight by sea, and sent him with a fleet to guard the straits of Artemisium. When the contingents met here, the Greeks would have the Lacedæmonians to command, and Eurybiades to be their admiral; but the Athenians, who pretty well surpassed all the rest together in number of vessels, would not submit to come after any other, till Themistocles, perceiving the danger of this contest, yielded his own command to Eurybiades, and got the Athenians to submit, extenuating the loss by persuading them that if in this war they behaved themselves like men, he would answer for it after that, that the Greeks, of their own will, would submit to their command. And it is evident that by this moderation of his he was the chief means of the deliverance of Greece, and of the glory which the Athenians gained, of alike surpassing their enemies in valour, and their confederates in wisdom. But as soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetæ, Eurybiades was astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and, being informed that two hundred more were sailing round behind the island of Sciathus, he immediately wanted to retire further into Greece, and get near some part of Peloponnesus, where their land army and their fleet might join; for he looked upon the Persian forces to be altogether unassailable by sea. But the Eubœans, fearing that the Greeks would forsake them, and leave them to the mercy of the enemy, sent Pelagon to

confer privately with Themistocles, taking with him a
good sum of money, which, as Herodotus reports, he
accepted and gave to Eurybiades. In this affair none
of his own countrymen opposed him so much as Archi-
teles, captain of the sacred galley*, who, having no
money to supply his seamen, was eager to go home;
but Themistocles so incensed his men against him, that
they set upon him and left him not so much as his sup-
per.
And when Architeles was much disheartened
and took it very ill, Themistocles immediately sent him
in a chest a service of bread and meat, and at the bot-
tom of it a talent of silver, desiring him to sup to-night,
and to-morrow provide for his seamen; if not, he would
report it amongst the Athenians that he had received
money from the enemy. So Phanias the Lesbian tells
the story.

of Arte.

B.C. 480.

Though the fights which now followed between the 8 Greeks and Persians, in the straits of Euboea, were not so Battles important as to lead to any final decision of the war, yet misium, the experience which the Greeks obtained in them was of great advantage; for thus by actual trial, and in real danger, they found out that neither number of ships, nor riches and ornaments, nor boasting shouts, nor barbarous songs of victory, were any way terrible to men that knew how to fight, and were resolved to come hand to hand with their enemies; these things they were to despise, and to come up close and grapple with their foes. This

* The Athenians had two sacred or state galleys, the Paralus (or the Seaside) and the Salaminian. These were used for showpurposes, for conveying religious deputations to Delos, and for sending despatches.

Battle

Pindar appears to have seen, and says justly enough of the fight at Artemisium, that

There the sons of Athens set

The stone that freedom stands on yet.

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

With numerous tribes from Asia's regions brought
The Athenians on these waters having fought
Erected, after they had quelled the Mede

To Dian this memorial of the deed.

There is a place still to be seen upon this shore, where, in the middle of a great heap of sand, they take out from the bottom a dark powder like ashes or something that has passed the fire; and here, it is supposed, the shipwrecks and bodies of the dead were burnt.

9 But when news came from Thermopyla to Artemiof Ther- sium informing them that king Leonidas was slain, and mopylæ. that Xerxes had made himself master of all the passages

by land, they returned back to the interior of Greece,

*Artemis Proseöa. "The dwellers in Methone and Thaumacia, the inhabitants of Meliboa and rocky Olizon, these," says Homer in the Catalogue, "Philoctetes commanded, skilful with the bow."

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