Part 22

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.

XXVII. Thucydides and Charon of Lampsakus relate that Xerxes was now dead, and that Themistokles gave himself up to his son; but Ephorus, Deinon, Kleitarchus, Herakleides, and many others, say that it was to Xerxes himself that he came. But the narrative of Thucydides agrees better with the dates, although they are not thoroughly settled.

At this perilous crisis Themistokles first applied to Artabanus, a chiliarch, or officer in command of a regiment of a thousand men, whom he told that he was a Greek, and that he wished to have an interview with the king about matters of the utmost importance, and in which the king was especially interested. He replied, "Stranger, the customs of different races are different, and each has its own standard of right and wrong; yet among all men it is thought right to honour, admire, and to defend one's own customs. Now we are told that you chiefly prize freedom and equality; we on the other hand think it the best of all our laws to honour the king, and to worship him as we should worship the statue of a god that preserves us all. Wherefore if you are come with the intention of adopting our customs, and of prostrating yourself before the king, you may be permitted to see the king, and speak with him; but if not, you must use some other person to communicate with him; for it is not the custom for the king to converse with any one who does not prostrate himself before him." Themistokles, hearing this, said to him, "Artabanus, I am come to increase the glory and power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no impediment to the interview with him which I desire." "Whom of the Greeks," asked Artabanus, "are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem to have the manners of a man of humble station." "No one," answered Themistokles, "must learn my name before the king himself." This is the story which we are told by Phanias. But Eratosthenes, in his treatise on wealth, tells us also that Themistokles was introduced to Artabanus by an Eretrian lady with whom the latter lived.

XXVIII. When he was brought into the king's presence he prostrated himself, and stood silent. The king then told his interpreter to ask him who he was; and when the interpreter had asked this question, he told him to answer, "I am, O King, Themistokles the Athenian, an exile, a man who has wrought much evil to the Persians, but more good than evil, in that I stopped the pursuit when Greece was safe, and I was able to do you a kindness as all was well at home. In my present fallen fortunes I am prepared to be grateful for any mark of favour you may show me, or to deprecate your anger, should you bear a grudge against me. You may see, from the violence of my own countrymen against me, how great were the benefits which I conferred upon the Persians; so now use me rather as a means of proving your magnanimity than of glutting your wrath. Wherefore save me, your suppliant, and do not destroy one who has become the enemy of Greece." Themistokles also introduced a supernatural element into his speech by relating the vision which he saw at the house of Nikogenes, and also a prophecy which he received at the shrine of Jupiter of Dodona, which bade him "go to the namesake of the god," from which he concluded that the god sent him to the king, because they were both great, and called kings. To this speech the Persian king made no answer, although he was astonished at his bold spirit; but in conversation with his friends he spoke as though this were the greatest possible piece of good fortune, and in his prayers begged Arimanios to make his enemies ever continue to banish their ablest men. He is said to have offered a sacrifice to the gods and to have drunk wine at once, and during the night in his soundest sleep he thrice cried out, "I have got Themistokles the Athenian."

XXIX. At daybreak he called together his friends and sent for Themistokles, who augured nothing pleasant from the insults and abuse which he received from the people at the palace gates, when they heard his name. 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." But when he was come before the king and had prostrated himself a second time, the king embraced him, and said in a friendly tone that he already owed him two hundred talents: for as he had brought himself he was clearly entitled to the reward which was offered to any one else who would do so. He also promised him much more than this, and encouraged him to speak at length upon the affairs of Greece. To this Themistokles answered, that human speech was like embroidered tapestry, because when spread out it shows all its figures, but when wrapped up it both conceals and spoils them, wherefore he asked for time. The king was pleased with his simile, and bade him take what time he chose. He asked for a year, during which he learned the Persian language sufficiently to talk to the king without an interpreter. This led the people to imagine that he discoursed about the affairs of Greece; but many changes were made at that time in the great officers of the court, and the nobles disliked Themistokles, imagining that he dared to speak about them to the king. Indeed, he was honoured as no other foreigner ever was, and went hunting with the king and lived in his family circle, so that he came into the presence of the king's mother, and became her intimate friend, and at the king's command was instructed in the mysteries of the Magi.

When Demaratus the Spartan was bidden to ask for a boon, he asked to be allowed to drive through Sardis wearing his tiara upright like that of the king. Mithropaustes, the king's cousin, took hold of Demaratus by his tiara, saying, "You have no brains for the king's tiara to cover; do you think you would become Zeus if you were given his thunderbolt to wield?" The king was very angry with Demaratus because of this request, but Themistokles by his entreaties restored him to favour. It is also said that the later Persian kings, whose politics were more mixed up with those of Greece, used to promise any Greek whom they wished to desert to them that they would treat him better than Themistokles. We are told that Themistokles himself, after he became a great man and was courted by many, was seated one day at a magnificent banquet, and said to his children, "My sons, we should have been ruined if it had not been for our ruin." Most writers agree that three cities, Magnesia, Lampsakus, and Myous, were allotted to him for bread, wine, and meat. To these Neanthes of Kyzikus and Phanias add two more, Perkote and Palaiskepsis, which were to supply bedding and clothing respectively.

XXX. On one occasion, when he went down to the seaside on some business connected with Greece, a Persian named Epixyes, Satrap of Upper Phrygia, plotted his assassination. He had long kept some Pisidians who were to kill him when he passed the night in the town of Leontokophalos, which means 'Lion's Head.' It is said that the mother of the gods appeared to him while he was sleeping at noon and said, "Themistokles, be late at Lion's Head, lest you fall in with a lion. As a recompense for this warning, I demand Mnesiptolema for my handmaid." 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. The Pisidians meanwhile came up to the camp with drawn swords, and, not clearly distinguishing in the moonlight the things hung out to dry, thought that they must be the tent of Themistokles, and that they would find him asleep within it. When they came close to it and raised the hangings, the servants who were on the watch fell upon them and seized them. Having thus escaped from danger, he built a temple to Dindymene at Magnesia to commemorate the appearance of the goddess, and appointed his daughter Mnesiptolema to be its priestess.

XXXI. When he came to Sardis, he leisurely examined the temples and the offerings which they contained, and in the temple of the mother of the gods, he found a bronze female figure called the Water-carrier, about two cubits high, which he himself, when overseer of the water supply of Athens, had made out of the fines imposed upon those who took water illegally.

Either feeling touched at the statue being a captive, or else willing to show the Athenians how much power he possessed in Persia, he proposed to the Satrap of Lydia to send it back to Athens. This man became angry at his demand, and said that he should write to the king, and tell him of it. Themistokles in terror applied himself to the harem of the Satrap, and by bribing the ladies there induced them to pacify him, while he himself took care to be more cautious in future, as he saw that he had to fear the enmity of the native Persians. For this reason, Theopompus tells us, he ceased to wander about Asia, but resided at Magnesia, where, receiving rich presents and honoured equally with the greatest Persian nobles, he lived for a long time in tranquillity; for the king's attention was so entirely directed to the affairs of the provinces of the interior that he had no leisure for operations against Greece. But when Egypt revolted, and the Athenians assisted it, and Greek triremes sailed as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Kimon was master of the sea, then the king determined to attack the Greeks, and prevent their development at his expense. Armies were put in motion, generals were appointed, and frequent messages were sent to Themistokles from the king, bidding him attack Greece and fulfil his promises. Themistokles, unmoved by resentment against his countrymen, and uninfluenced by the thought of the splendid position which he might occupy as commander-in-chief, possibly too, thinking that his task was an impossible one, as Greece possessed many great generals, especially Kimon, who had a most brilliant reputation, but chiefly because he would not soil his glory and disgrace the trophies which he had won, determined, as indeed was his best course, to bring his life to a fitting close. He offered sacrifice to the gods, called his friends together, and, having taken leave of them, drank bull's blood, according to the most common tradition, but according to others, some quickly-operating poison, and died at Magnesia in the sixty-fifth year of a life almost entirely spent in great political and military employments.

The King of Persia, when he heard of the manner of his death and his reasons for dying, admired him more than ever, and continued to treat his family and friends with kindness.

XXXII. Themistokles left five children, Neokles, Diokles, Archeptolis, Polyeuktus, Kleophantus, by his first wife Archippe, who was the daughter of Lysander, of the township of Alopekai. Of these Kleophantus is mentioned by Plato the philosopher as being an excellent horseman, but otherwise worthless. Of the elder ones, Neokles was bitten by a horse and died while still a child, and Diokles was adopted by his grandfather Lysander. He also had several daughters by his second wife, of whom Mnesiptolema married Archeptolis, her father's half-brother; Italia married Panthoides of the island of Chios, and Sybaris married Nikomedes, an Athenian. After Themistokles's death, his nephew Phrasikles sailed to Magnesia, and with her brother's consent married Nicomache, and also took charge of the youngest child, who was named Asia.

The people of Magnesia show a splendid tomb of Themistokles in their market-place; but with regard to the fate of his remains we must pay no attention to Andokides, who in his address to his friends, tells us that the Athenians stole them and tore them to pieces, because he would tell any falsehood to excite the hatred of the nobles against the people. Phylarchus, too, writes his history in such dramatic form that he all but resorts to the actual machinery of the stage, bringing forward one Neokles, and Demopolis as the children of Themistokles to make a touching scene, which anyone can see is untrue. Diodorus the topographer, in his treatise 'On Tombs' says, more as a conjecture than as knowing it for a fact, that in the great harbour of Peiraeus a kind of elbow juts out from the promontory of Alkimus, and that when one sails past this, going inwards, where the sea is most sheltered, there is a large foundation, and upon it the tomb of Themistokles, shaped like an altar. It is thought that the comic poet Plato alludes to this in the following verses:

"By the sea's margin, by the watery strand, Thy monument, Themistokles, shall stand; By this directed to thy native shore The merchant shall convey his freighted store; And when our fleets are summoned to the fight, Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight."

The descendants of Themistokles are given certain privileges at Magnesia even to the present day, for I know that Themistokles, an Athenian, my friend and fellow-student in the school of Ammonias the philosopher, enjoyed them.

LIFE OF CAMILLUS.

I. The strangest fact in the life of Furius Camillus is that, although he was a most successful general and won great victories, though he was five times appointed dictator, triumphed four times, and was called the second founder of Rome, yet he never once was consul. The reason of this is to be found in the political condition of Rome at that time; for the people, being at variance with the senate, refused to elect consuls, and chose military tribunes instead, who, although they had full consular powers, yet on account of their number were less offensive to the people than consuls. To have affairs managed by six men instead of two appears to have been a consolation to those who had suffered from the arbitrary rule of a few. It was during this period that Camillus reached the height of power and glory, and yet he would not become consul against the will of the people, although several occasions occurred when he might have been elected, but in his various appointments he always contrived, even when he had sole command, to share his power with others, while even when he had colleagues he kept all the glory for himself. His moderation prevented any one from grudging him power, while his successes were due to his genius, in which he confessedly surpassed all his countrymen.

II. The family of the Furii was not a very illustrious one before Camillus gained glory in the great battle with the Aequi and Volsci, where he served under the dictator Postumius Tubertus. Riding out before the rest of the army, he was struck in the thigh by a dart, but tore it out, assailed the bravest of the enemy, and put them to flight. After this, amongst other honours he was appointed censor, an office of great dignity at that time. One admirable measure is recorded of his censorship, that by arguments and threatening them with fines he persuaded the unmarried citizens to marry the widow women, whose number was very great on account of the wars. Another measure to which he was forced was that of taxing orphans, who had hitherto been exempt from taxation. This was rendered necessary by the constant campaigns which were carried on at a great expense, and more especially by the siege of Veii. Some call the inhabitants of this city Veientani. It was the bulwark of Etruria, possessing as many fighting men as Rome itself; the citizens were rich, luxurious, and extravagant in their habits, and fought bravely many times for honour and for power against the Romans. At this period, having been defeated in several great battles, the people of Veii had given up any schemes of conquest, but had built strong and high walls, filled their city with arms and provisions, and all kinds of material of war, and fearlessly endured a siege, which was long, no doubt, but which became no less irksome and difficult to the besiegers. Accustomed as the Romans had been to make short campaigns in summer weather, and to spend their winters at home, they were now for the first time compelled by their tribunes to establish forts and entrench their camp, and pass both summer and winter in the enemy's country for seven years in succession. The generals were complained of, and as they seemed to be carrying on the siege remissly, they were removed, and others appointed, among them Camillus, who was then tribune for the second time. But he effected nothing in the siege at that time, because he was sent to fight the Faliscans and Capenates, who had insulted the Roman territory throughout the war with Veii, when the Roman army was engaged elsewhere, but were now driven by Camillus with great loss to the shelter of their city walls.

III. After this, while the war was at its height, much alarm was caused by the strange phenomenon seen at the Alban lake, which could not be accounted for on ordinary physical principles. The season was autumn, and the summer had not been remarkable for rain or for moist winds, so that many of the streams and marshes in Italy were quite dried up, and others held out with difficulty, while the rivers, as is usual in summer, were very low and deeply sunk in their bed. But the Alban lake, which is self-contained, lying as it does surrounded by fertile hills, began for no reason, except it may be the will of Heaven, to increase in volume and to encroach upon the hillsides near it, until it reached their very tops, rising quietly and without disturbance. At first the portent only amazed the shepherds and herdsmen of the neighbourhood; but when the lake by the weight of its waters broke through the thin isthmus of land which restrained it, and poured down in a mighty stream through the fertile plains below to the sea, then not only the Romans, but all the people of Italy, thought it a portent of the gravest character. Much talk about it took place in the camp before Veii, so that the besieged also learned what was happening at the lake.