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 THEMISTOCLES, who had distinguished himself at Marathon, became the leading statesman of Athens after the death of Miltiades. He saw clearly not only that the struggle with Persia would be renewed, but that it would be decided by superiority at sea rather than on land. Hitherto Athens had depended on her infantry. Themistocles took advantage of the ten years' respite between Marathon and Salamis to transform her into a maritime power. His policy was hotly opposed by Aristides, the leader of the conservatives, who believed, and truly, that with maritime development old-fashioned principles and institutions would be weakened.
When Xerxes came, the new fleet was the salvation of Greece. Themistocles commanded it. Although Athens furnished ten times as many ships as Sparta, with a magnanimity rare among Greeks, he cheerfully submitted to serve under the Spartan admiral. The Persian fleet was vastly more numerous, and it was with great difficulty that he prevailed on the confederates to make a stand off Artemisium (B.C. 480). In two battles fought there, indecisive but encouraging for the Greeks, Themistocles and his squadron especially distinguished themselves. When Xerxes forced Thermopylæ and passed into Attica, the Athenians, by the advice of their great leader, left Athens to be burned; and, having transported their non-combatants to Peloponnesus, made their "wooden walls" their city for the time. The combined fleet was now in the bay of Salamis.
In the famous council the night before the great battle, Themistocles urged that if they retreated further, as the Peloponnesians selfishly proposed, the contingents would disperse to their homes and Greece would be lost. As he earnestly pressed this view, an exasperated opponent lifted his stick. "Strike, but hear me," was the calm reply. Appeals to honour, generosity, and common sense, proving alike fruitless, the Athenian resorted to the audacious expedient of secretly sending a message to Xerxes that the allies were about to fly and that he would do well to intercept them. When dawn broke, they found themselves hemmed in. There, by "sea-born Salamis," was fought and won the most memorable of all battles, ancient or modern (B.C. 480). The overwhelming Persian land-force remained in Greece till the next year, when it was destroyed at Platæa. But Xerxes fled home, scared by another message of simulated friendship from Themistocles, pretending that the Greek fleet was about to break down the bridge over the Hellespont. When the commanders met to adjudge the prizes for skill at Salamis, like true Greeks each voted the first prize to himself, but a large majority of votes for the second prize were cast for Themistocles.
The Athenians came out of the war covered with glory. But their city being a ruin they were defenseless, and Spartan jealousy would fain have hindered them from rebuilding their walls. Through this crisis too they were piloted by Themistocles with infinite skill and daring. Athens was re-fortified, and, what was still more important, the harbour Piræus also.
After these splendid services, it is sad to tell that Themistocles was exiled; sadder to feel no confidence that he did not deserve it. Accused subsequently with treasonable correspondence with Persia, hunted from one Greek city to another, he at length took refuge with Artaxerxes, and now at all events promised to assist him in subjugating Greece. Many an eminent Greek career is stained with an infamy of this sort. Themistocles was saved from consummating it by death. The good that he did lives after him; the evil was interred with his bones.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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