Themistocles

After the sea-fight, Xerxes, still furious at his failure, undertook to carry moles out into the sea on which he could lead his infantry across to Salamis against the Hellenes, damming up the intervening strait. But Themistocles, merely by way of sounding Aristides, proposed, as though he were in earnest, to sail with the fleet to the Hellespont and break the span of boats there, in order, said he, that we may capture Asia in Europe.

Aristides, however, was displeased with the scheme and said: Now indeed the Barbarian with whom we have fought consults his ease and pleasure, but should we shut up in Hellas and bring under fearful compulsion a man who is lord of such vast forces, he will no longer sit under a golden parasol to view the spectacle of the battle at his ease, but he will dare all things, and, superintending everything in person, because of his peril, will rectify his previous remissness and take better counsel for the highest issues thus at stake.