improve him in sagacity or in management of business, he would give attention to beyond one of his years, from confidence in his natural capacities for such things. And thus afterwards, when in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus; contrary to chronology; for Melissus commanded the Samians in their siege by Pericles, who was much Themistocles's junior; and with Pericles also Anaxagoras was intimate. They, therefore, might rather be credited, who relate that Themistocles was an admirer of Mnesiphilus the Phrearrhian, who was neither rhetorician nor natural philosopher, but a professor of that which was then called wisdom, consisting in a sort of political shrewdness and practical sagacity, and having come to him by succession, almost like a sect of philosophy, from Solon; but those who came afterwards, and mixed it with pleadings and legal artifices, and transformed the practical part of it into a mere art of speaking and an exercise of words, were generally called sophists. Themistocles resorted to Mnesiphilus, when he was already engaged in politics. But in the first essays of his youth he was not regular nor happily balanced; he allowed himself to

3

follow mere natural character, which, without the control of reason and instruction, is apt to hurry, upon either side, into sudden and violent courses, and very often to break away and determine upon the worst; as he afterwards owned himself, saying, that the wildest colts make the best horses, if they only get properly trained and broken in. But those who upon this fasten stories of their own invention, as of his being publicly disowned by his father, and that his mother died for grief of her son's ill fame, certainly calumniate him. And there are others who relate, on the contrary, that to deter him from public business, and to let him see how the people treat their leaders when they have at last no further use of them, his father showed him the old galleys as they lay forsaken and cast about upon the seashore.

But his mind, it is evident, was very early possessed with the keenest interest in public affairs, and the most passionate ambition for distinction. Eager from the first to obtain the highest place, he unhesitatingly accepted the hatred of the most powerful and influential leaders in the city, but more especially of Aristides the son of Lysimachus, who throughout took the course opposed to his. And yet all this great enmity between them arose, it appears, from a very boyish occasion, both being in love with the same person, as Ariston the philosopher tells us; ever after which they took opposite sides, and were rivals in politics. Though certainly the dissimilarity of their lives and manners must be supposed to have increased the difference. For Aristides had a gentle nature, and more nobility in his way of dealing; and, in public, acting always with

a view, not to glory or popularity, but to the best interests of the state consistently with safety and honesty, he was often forced to oppose Themistocles and interfere to prevent the increase of his influence, seeing him stirring up the people to all kinds of enterprises and introducing various innovations. For it is said that Themistocles was so transported with the thoughts of glory, and so inflamed with the passion for great actions, that though he was still young when the battle of Marathon was fought against the Persians, upon Battle the skilful conduct of the general, Miltiades, being thon, everywhere talked about, he was observed to be

of Mara

B.C.490.

thoughtful and reserved, alone by himself; he passed the nights without sleep, and avoided all his usual places of recreation, and to those who wondered at the change, and inquired the reason of it, he gave the answer, that the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep. And while others were of opinion that the battle of Marathon would be an end to the war, Themistocles thought it was but the beginning of far greater conflicts, and for these, to the benefit of all Greece, he

kept himself in continual readiness, and his city also in proper training, foreseeing from far before what would happen.

4 And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed tc divide amongst themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he was the only man that durst come forward and propose to the people that this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to carry on the war against the Æginetans, which was just then at its height, and they, by the number of their ships, held the sovereignty of the sea; and Themistocles thus was more easily able to gain his point, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were at a great distance, and their coming very uncertain and at that time not much to be feared; but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against the Æginetans, he induced them to prepare. So that with this money a hundred ships were built, with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little by little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief that whereas by land they were not a fit match for their next neighbours, with their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades. And whether or no he hereby injured the purity and

true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers. But that the deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself would be sufficient evidence, who, though his land forces were still entire, fled away after his defeat at sea, and thought himself no longer able to encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection, but rather to hinder them from pursuing him.

Themistocles is said to have been eager in the acqui- 5 sition of riches, according to some, that he might be the more liberal; for loving to sacrifice often, and to be splendid in his entertainment of strangers, he required a plentiful revenue; yet he is accused by others of having been parsimonious and sordid to that degree, that he would sell provisions which were sent to him as a present. He desired Philides, who was a breeder of horses, to give him a colt, and when he refused it, threatened that in a short time he would turn his house into a wooden horse*, intimating that he would stir up dispute and litigation between him and his relations. In the passion for distinction and notice, he went beyond all men. When he was still young and unknown in the world, he entreated Epicles of Hermione, who was a famous player on the lute and was much sought after by the Athenians, to come and practise at home with him, being ambitious of having people inquire after his house and frequent his company. When he came to the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his

* Full, like the Trojan horse, of people ready for fighting.