History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

in the pursuit, afterwards took off

the roof of the chamber, and having made sure that he was inside, shut

him in, barricaded the doors, and staying before the place, reduced

him by starvation. When they found that he was on the point of

expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of

the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was

brought out he died. They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas,

where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him

somewhere near. But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the

Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death—where he

now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument

declares—and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give

back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House.

So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a

substitute for Pausanias. the Athenians retorted by telling the

Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to

be a curse.

 

To return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course

of the inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians

accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians and required them to punish

him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians consented to do

so. But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence

at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese.

So they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the

pursuit, persons with instructions to take him wherever they found

him. But Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from

Peloponnese to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But

the Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him

at the cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed

him over to the continent opposite. Pursued by the officers who hung

on the report of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was

compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king,

though they were not on friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be

indoors, but his wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed

him to take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth. Soon

afterwards Admetus came in, and Themistocles told him who he was,

and begged him not to revenge on Themistocles in exile any

opposition which his requests might have experienced from Themistocles

at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low for his revenge; retaliation

was only honourable between equals. Besides, his opposition to the

king had only affected the success of a request, not the safety of his

person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he

mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just

be consigning him to certain death.

 

The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was

sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of

supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long

afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but

sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander’s

dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a

merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was

carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading

Naxos. In his alarm—he was luckily unknown to the people in the

vessel—he told the master who he was and what he was flying for, and

said that, if he refused to save him, he would declare that he was

taking him for a bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no

one leave the ship until a favourable time for sailing should arise.

If he complied with his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense.

The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for a day and a

night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.

 

After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he

received some from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at

Argos, Themistocles started inland with one of the coast Persians, and

sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes’s son, who had just come to

the throne. Its contents were as follows: “I, Themistocles, am come to

you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was

compelled to defend myself against your father’s invasion—harm,

however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his

retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him. For the

past, you are a good turn in my debt”—here he mentioned the warning

sent to Xerxes from Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the

bridges unbroken, which, as he falsely pretended, was due to him—

“for the present, able to do you great service, I am here, pursued

by the Hellenes for my friendship for you. However, I desire a

year’s grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the objects of

my coming.”

 

It is said that the King approved his intention, and told him to

do as he said. He employed the interval in making what progress he

could in the study of the Persian tongue, and of the customs of the

country. Arrived at court at the end of the year, he attained to

very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed

before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly from the

hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of

Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of

his capacity. For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most

indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim

on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own

native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at

once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of

no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its

most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor of all

that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the

power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no

experience. He could also excellently divine the good and evil which

lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider the

extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application,

this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in

the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency. Disease was the

real cause of his death; though there is a story of his having ended

his life by poison, on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises

to the king. However this may be, there is a monument to him in the

marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor of the district,

the King having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a

year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest

wine country, for wine, and Myos for other provisions. His bones, it

is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in accordance with his

wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This was done without the

knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica

an outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and

Themistocles, the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous

men of their time in Hellas.

 

To return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy,

the injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it

provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed persons, have

been related already. It was followed by a second, which ordered

Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence

of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that

war might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree,

excluding the Megarians from the use of Athenian harbours and of the

market of Athens. But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the

decree, or to entertain their other proposals; she accused the

Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and

the unenclosed land on the border, and of harbouring her runaway

slaves. At last an embassy arrived with the Lacedaemonian ultimatum.

The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. Not a word

was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this:

“Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why

it should not, if you would leave the Hellenes independent.” Upon this

the Athenians held an assembly, and laid the matter before their

consideration. It was resolved to deliberate once for all on all their

demands, and to give them an answer. There were many speakers who came

forward and gave their support to one side or the other, urging the

necessity of war, or the revocation of the decree and the folly of

allowing it to stand in the way of peace. Among them came forward

Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time at Athens,

ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following advice:

 

“There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through

everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the

Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit which inspires men while they

are being persuaded to make war is not always retained in action; that

as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see that now as

before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me;

and I put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be

persuaded, to support the national resolves even in the case of

reverses, or to forfeit all credit for their wisdom in the event of

success. For sometimes the course of things is as arbitrary as the

plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame chance for

whatever does not happen as we expected. Now it was clear before

that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear

now. The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences

to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we

have. Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never

yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish

complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in

the end we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and

adopting that of command. They order us to raise the siege of

Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree;

and they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes

independent. I hope that you will none of you think that we shall be

going to war for a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree,

which appears in front of their complaints, and the revocation of

which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach

linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause. Why,

this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution. If

you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand,

as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance;

while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they

must treat you more as equals. Make your decision therefore at once,

either to submit before you are harmed, or if we are to go to war,

as I for one think we ought, to do