Themistocles

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. II. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914.

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.
And in the night that followed, Themistocles, as he lay in bed, thought he saw in a dream that a serpent wound itself along over his body and crept up to his neck,

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.