Themistocles

Well then, they visited him with ostracism,[*]( About 472 B.C.) curtailing his dignity and pre-eminence, as they were wont to do in the case of all whom they thought to have oppressive power, and to be incommensurate with true democratic equality. For ostracism was not a penalty, but a way of pacifying and alleviating that jealousy which delights to humble the eminent, breathing out its malice into this disfranchisement.

After he had been thus banished from the city, and while he was sojourning at Argos, circumstances connected with the death of Pausanias gave his enemies at Athens ground for proceeding against him. The one who actually brought in the indictment against him for treason was Leobotes the son of Alcmeon, of the deme Agraule, but the Spartans supported him in the accusation. Pausanias, while engaged in his grand scheme of treachery, at first kept it concealed from Themistocles;

but when he saw him thus banished from his state and in great bitterness of spirit, he made bold to invite him into partnership in his own undertakings, showing him a letter he had received from the king, and inciting him against the Hellenes as a base and thankless people. Themistocles rejected the solicitation of Pausanias, and utterly refused the proffered partnership; and yet he disclosed the propositions to no one, nor did he even give information of the treacherous scheme, because he expected either that Pausanias would give it up of his own accord, or that in some other way he would be found out, since he was so irrationally grasping after such strange and desperate objects.

And so it was that, when Pausanias had been put to death, certain letters and documents regarding these matters were discovered which cast suspicion on Themistocles. The Lacedaemonians cried him down, and his envious fellow-citizens denounced him, though he was not present to plead his cause, but defended himself in writing, making particular use of earlier accusations brought against him.

Since he was once slanderously accused by his enemies before his fellow-citizens—so he wrote, as one who ever sought to rule, but had no natural bent nor even the desire to be ruled, he could never have sold himself with Hellas to Barbarians, much less to foemen. The people, however, were over-persuaded by his accusers, and sent men with orders to arrest him and bring him up in custody to stand trial before a Congress of Hellenes.

But he heard of this in advance, and crossed over to Corcyra, where he had been recognized as a public benefactor of the city. For he had served as arbiter in a dispute between them and the Corinthians, and settled the quarrel by deciding that the Corinthians should pay an indemnity of twenty talents, and administer Leucas as a common colony of both cities. Thence he fled to Epirus, and being pursued by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, he threw himself upon grievous and desperate chances of escape by taking refuge with Admetus, who was king of the Molossians,

and who, since he had once asked some favour of the Athenians and had been insultingly refused it by Themistocles, then at the height of his political influence, was angry with him ever after, and made it plain that he would take vengeance on him if he caught him. But in the desperate fortune of that time Themistocles was more afraid of kindred and recent jealousy than of an anger that was of long standing and royal, and promptly cast himself upon the king’s mercy, making himself the suppliant of Admetus in a way quite peculiar and extraordinary.