Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata
Plutarch
Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).
Themistocles while yet in his youth abandoned himself to wine and women.[*](Cf. Moralia, 552 B; Athenaeus, pp. 533 D and 576 C.) But after Miltiades,
commanding the Athenian army, had overcome the barbarians at Marathon, never again was it possible to encounter Themistocles misconducting himself. To those who expressed their amazement at the change in him, he said that the trophy of Miltiades does not allow me to sleep or to be indolent. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. iii. (113 B); Moralia, 84 B, 92 C, 800 B; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, iv. 19 (44): and Valerius Maximus, viii. 14, ext. 1.)Being asked whether he would rather have been Achilles or Homer, he said, How about you yourself ? Would you rather be the victor at the Olympic games or the announcer of the victor ? [*](The remark is attributed to Alexander by Dio Chrysostom, Oration, ii. (22 M., 79 R.).)
When Xerxes was descending upon Greece with his mighty armament, Themistocles was afraid of Epicydes the popular leader, unscrupulous and cowardly, lest possibly he might, by being elected general, bring about the ruin of the State; and so he bribed Epicydes to withdraw from his attempt to gain the command. [*](The story is told more fully in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. vi. (114 D).)
When Adeimantus lacked the courage to risk a naval battle, and said to Themistocles, who was exhorting and urging on the Greeks, Themistocles, in the games they always scourge the runners who start before the signal is given, Themistocles replied, Yes, Adeimantus, but they do not crown those who are left behind in the race. [*](Adeimantus is the speaker here, as in Herodotus, viii. 59; but in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xi. (117 D), the remark is attributed not to the Corinthian Adeimantus, but to Eurybiades the Spartan, who was in command of the fleet.)
When Eurybiades lifted his cane as though to strike him, he said, Strike but listen. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xi. (117 E); Aelian, Varia Historia, xiii. 40; Diogenes Laertius, vi. 21.)
Unable to persuade Eurybiades to engage the enemy’s ships in the narrows, he sent a secret message to the barbarian telling him not to be afraid of the Greeks, who were running away. And when the barbarian, by taking this advice, was vanquished in the battle because he fought where the Greeks had the advantage, Themistocles again sent a message to him, bidding him flee to the Hellespont by the speediest route, since the Greeks were minded to destroy the bridge. In this his purpose was, while saving the Greeks, to give the king the impression that he was saving him. [*](The details may be found in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chaps. xiii.-xvi. (118 B-120 C). The story comes from Herodotus, viii. 75 and 110. Cf. also Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 30. 3 and 4.)
When the man from Seriphus said to him that it was not because of himself but because of his country that he was famous, Themistocles remarked, What you say is true enough; but if I were from Seriphus, I should not have become famous, nor would you if you were from Athens. [*](In almost the same words in Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 B), but the story goes back to Herodotus, viii. 125, where Timodemus is the speaker, and Themistocles names the island of Belbina. The man from Seriphus is found first in Plato, Republic, 329 E and persists thereafter, as in Plutarch and in Cicero, De senectute, 3 (8), and in Origen, Against Celsus, i. 29 (347 E).)
Antiphates, the handsome youth of whom Themistocles was enamoured, avoided him in the earlier days, and looked down upon him, but, after Themistocles had acquired great repute and power, kept coming to him and trying to flatter him. My boy, said Themistocles, it has taken time, but now we have both come to have sense. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 A).)
To Simonides, who petitioned for a legal decision which was not just, he said that Simonides would not be a good poet if he sang out of tune, nor should he himself be a useful official if he gave a decision out of tune with the law. [*](Cf. Moralia, 534 E and 807 B.)
Of his son, who was pert towards his mother, he said that the boy wielded more power than anybody else in Greece; for the Athenians ruled the Greeks, he himself ruled the Athenians, the boy’s mother ruled himself, and the boy ruled the mother. [*](Cf. Moralia, 1 C; Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 B); and Life of Cato Major, chap. viii. (340 B).)
Of the suitors for his daughter’s hand he esteemed the man of promise higher than the man of wealth, saying that he was looking for a man that was in need of money rather than for money that was in need of a man.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 c); Cicero, De officiis, ii. 20 (71); Valerius Maximus, vii. 2, ext. 9. A somewhat similar remark is attributed to Pericles by Stobaeus, Florilegium, lxx. 17, and to a Spartan (on the authority of Serenus), lxxii. 15.)
When he offered a plot of land for sale, he ordered the announcement to be made that it also had a good neighbour. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 C).)
When the Athenians treated him with contumely, he said, Why do you grow tired of being well served many times by the same men ? He also likened himself to the plane-trees, beneath which men hasten when overtaken by a storm, but, when fair weather comes, they pluck the leaves as they pass by and break off the branches. [*](Life of Themistocles, chap. xviii. (121 A), and chap. xxii. (123 A); Cf. also Aelian, Varia Historia, ix. 18.)
The Eretrians, he said humorously, were like cuttle-fish in having a sword [*](The bone of the cuttle-fish; Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animalium, iv. 1. 12.) but no heart.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xi. (118 A).)
After his banishment from Athens first, and later from Greece, he went to the Persian king, and, when he was bidden to speak, he said that speech is like rugs woven with patterns and figures; for speech, like the rugs, when it is extended, displays its figures, but, when it is rolled into a small compass,
it conceals and spoils them.He asked for time so that, when he should have learned the Persian tongue, he might conduct his interview through his own self and not through another. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, chap. xxix. (126 C); Thucydides, i. 137.)