Themistocles

And Thucydides[*](Thuc. 1.137) says that he made his way across the country to the sea, and set sail from Pydna, no one of the passengers knowing who he was until, when the vessel had been carried by a storm to Naxos, to which the Athenians at that time were laying siege,[*]( About 469 B.C.) he was terrified, and disclosed himself to the master and the captain of the ship, and partly by entreaties, partly by threats, actually declaring that he would denounce and vilify them to the Athenians as having taken him on board at the start in no ignorance but under bribes,—in this way compelled them to sail by and make the coast of Asia.

Of his property, much was secretly abstracted for him by his friends and sent across the sea to Asia; but the sum total of that which was brought to light and confiscated amounted to one hundred talents, according to Theopompus,—Theophrastus says eighty,—and yet Themistocles did not possess the worth of three talents before he entered political life.

After landing at Cyme, and learning that many people on the coast were watching to seize him, and especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus,—for the chase was a lucrative one to such as were fond of getting gain from any and every source, since two hundred talents had been publicly set upon his head by the King,—he fled to Aegae, a little Aeolic citadel. Here no one knew him except his host Nicogenes, the wealthiest man in Aeolia, and well acquainted with the magnates of the interior.

With him he remained in hiding for a few days. During this time, after the dinner which followed a certain sacrifice, Olbius, the paedagogue of the children of Nicogenes, becoming rapt and inspired, lifted up his voice and uttered the following verse:—

1. Night shall speak, and night instruct thee, night shall give thee victory.

then became an eagle as soon as it touched his face, enveloped him with its wings and lifted him on high and bore him a long distance, when there appeared as it were a golden herald’s wand, on which it set him securely down, freed from helpless terror and distress. However that may be, he was sent on his way by Nicogenes, who devised the following scheme for his safety. Most barbarous nations, and the Persians in particular, are savage and harsh in their jealous watchfulness over their women.