Themistocles

This advice greatly pleased Themistocles.

” With that he sent three talents of silver to Adimantus ship.

This was the way in which Themistocles made the Greeks stay where they were:

Themistocles might have lived at leisure, Epaminondas might, and — not to seek old and foreign examples — I myself might;

and so Epaminondas, in my judgement the foremost man of Greece, is said to have played excellently on the lyre, while Themistocles, some years before, when he declined the lyre at a banquet, was thought the more unschooled.

I cannot say, however this is to be taken, that Lycurgus and Solon lack glory for their laws and public discipline, or Themistocles and Epaminondas for their warlike valour.

After this came the archonship of Themistocles.

Does it seem to you that Themistocles, who was general when you conquered the Persian in the battle of Salamis, was the better man, or Demosthenes, who the other day deserted his post?

Think you not that Themistocles and those who died at Marathon and at Plataea, and the very sepulchres of your fathers, will groan aloud, if the man who admits that he has negotiated with the barbarians against the Greeks shall receive a crown?

and that Themistocles was exiled as a traitor—the man who, taking them over when they were unable to dwell on the soil of their fatherland, but were yielding to the enemy the very city and the temples, not only restored all these things, but further made them leaders of the Greeks, taking away that honour from the Lacedaemonians, who had held it from the beginning.

One might find many other things—indeed, simply all that have to do with some work or action—common to philosophers and to orators, that is, to such orators as are not vulgar mongers nor hirelings looking only to money and to private disputes about contracts or such matters, but are deemed worthy to give counsel and make laws in public—just as, I suppose, Pericles and Thucydides did at Athens, and …

And later, perhaps, one might say that Themistocles and Pericles too arose among others—for you are surely not unacquainted with these two men—the one, in that he compelled the Athenians, who before were a land-power, to fight at sea, and to give up their land and their city to the barbarians, and to make all their affairs, the temples of the gods and the tombs of their ancestors, depend upon their ships;

and it was only lately that Themistocles persuaded the Athenians, when at war with the aeginetans, and when the barbarian was also expected, to build those very ships with which they fought him by sea;

When they heard this, they believed Themistocles through their friendship for him;

It was by his advice that they built the walls of that thickness which is still seen round the Piraeus;

but by hanging some good amulet about her.

And how did Themistocles make the city love him?

and you will make a name for yourself first at home, later on in Greece, and possibly, like Themistocles, in foreign lands as well;

but Themistocles prevented it, not saying what use he would make of the money, but bidding them lend a talent each to the hundred richest of the Athenians, and then, if the expenditure pleased them, the cost should be the city's, but if not, they should recover the money from the borrowers.

then Themistocles and Aristides;

The champions of the people in these times were Aristides son of Lysimachus and Themistocles son of Neocles, the one thought skilled in war, the other in statecraft, and excelling those of his time in justice;

I never heard, in the school of Epicurus, Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Themistocles, Epaminondas named — who are on the lips of all the other philosophers.

Themistocles, indeed, when Simonides or someone else promised him an art of memory, said, 'I would rather one of forgetting;

Read the panegyrics, Torquatus — not of those who were praised by Homer, not of Cyrus, not of Agesilaus, not of Aristides or Themistocles, not of Philip or Alexander;

And so decorous were those public men of old, Pericles, Themistocles, and Aristeides (who was called by a name most unlike that by which Timarchus here is called), that to speak with the arm outside the cloak, as we all do nowadays as a matter of course, was regarded then as an ill-mannered thing, and they carefully refrained from doing it.

and after treating a man with such contempt, later, when it suits his whim, he turns about, and as though he were accusing an Alcibiades or a Themistocles, the most famous men among all the Greeks, he proceeds to charge that same man with having destroyed the cities in Phocis, with having lost you the Thracian coast, with having expelled from his kingdom Cersobleptes, a friend and ally of the city.

and indeed, when a certain person promised to teach him the art of memory, then newly being introduced, he is said to have replied that he would rather learn to forget — because, I suppose, whatever he had heard or seen clung fast in his memory.

and that Themistocles, driven and harried from the very country he had set free, fled not to the ports of Greece which he had himself preserved, but to the bosom of that barbarian land which he had crushed.

Mnesiphilus is recorded as an admirer of Solon, with whom Themistocles associated.

and no man would say that the battle of Salamis belonged to Themistocles,—it was the battle of the Athenians;

When they caught Themistocles presumptuously setting himself above the people, they banished him from Athens, and found him guilty of siding with the Medes.

if any of you know the sort of house that Themistocles or Miltiades or any of those distinguished men of old lived in, you may observe that it is no grander than the common run of houses.

Now history tells us that Themistocles bade his countrymen get on with the building and detain anyone who came from Sparta, while he went off himself on an embassy to the Lacedaemonians;

Now I assert—and I earnestly appeal to you, Athenians, not to take offence at what is coming, but to consider whether it is true—I assert that in proportion as openness is better than secrecy, and it is more honorable to gain one’s end by victory than by trickery, so Conon deserves more credit than Themistocles for building the walls.

Take Themistocles, who was your general in the sea-fight at Salamis, and Miltiades, who commanded at Marathon, and many more whose good services were far greater than those of our present generals:

For truly, men of Athens, they never robbed themselves of any of their achievements, nor would anyone dream of speaking of Themistocles’ fight at Salamis, but of the Athenians’ fight, nor of Miltiades’ battle at Marathon, but of the Athenians’ battle.

But the private houses of those who rose to power were so modest and so in accordance with the style of our constitution that the homes of their famous men, of Themistocles and Cimon and Aristides, as any of you can see that knows them, are not a whit more splendid than those of their neighbors.

who chose Themistocles, the man who gave them that counsel, as their commander, and stoned Cyrsilus to death for advising obedient submission?

Who made those long and eloquent speeches, and read the decrees of Miltiades and Themistacles and the oath which our young men take in the temple of Aglaurus?

Cicero relates that in this manner the children of Themistocles were reduced to want, nor does he think it unjust that the children of Lepidus should share the same fate.

Remember the figures who, born after the heroes of old, yet rivalled their deeds of valor, the followers of Miltiades and Themistocles, and those others who, by freeing Greece, brought honor to their country and glory to their lives;

After him, Themistocles, placed at the head of our forces in the Persian War, counselled our ancestors to abandon the city (and who could have persuaded them to do this but a man of surpassing eloquence?

Now the polity as it was in the earlier time was as much better and stronger than that which obtained later as Aristides and Themistocles and Miltiades were better men than Hyperbolus and Cleophon and those who today harangue the people.

Again, the Lacedaemonians contributed to this battle the leadership of Eurybiades, who, had he carried into effect what he intended to do, could have been prevented by nothing in the world from bringing destruction upon the Hellenes, whereas the Athenians furnished Themistocles, who, by the common assent of all, was credited with being responsible for the victorious outcome of that battle as well …

Take, on the other hand, the case of Themistocles, who in the service of Hellas defeated them at Salamis: