Themistocles

And when Demaratus the Spartan, being bidden to ask a gift, asked that he might ride in state through Sardis, wearing his tiara upright after the manner of the Persian kings, Mithropaustes the King’s cousin said, touching the tiara of Demaratus: This tiara of thine hath no brains to cover; indeed thou wilt not be Zeus merely because thou graspest the thunderbolt.

The King also repulsed Demaratus in anger at his request, and was minded to be inexorable towards him, and yet Themistocles begged and obtained a reconciliation with him. And it is said that later kings also, in whose reigns Persia and Hellas came into closer relations, as often as they asked for a Hellene to advise them, promised him in writing, every one, that he should be more influential at court than Themistocles.

And Themistocles himself, they say, now become great and courted by many, said to his children, when a splendid table was once set for him: My children, we should now have been undone, had we not been undone before. [*](Thuc. 1.138) Three cities, as most writers say, were given him for bread, wine, and meat, namely: Magnesia, Lampsacus, and Myus; and two others are added by Neanthes of Cyzicus and by Phanias, namely: Percote and Palaescepsis; these for his bedding and raiment.