Sequel of the Life of Miltiades—of Aristides—of Themistocles.

We shall hereafter have occasion to describe briefly the total change of the international relations and politics of the Greek communities, which ensued in consequence of the Persian war. Athens was rewarded for her exertions and sufferings by half a century of increasing and almost uninterrupted splendour, under the successive guidance of Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles. Still, as we do not write the history of Greece, we shall pass in silence over this brilliant period. Seasons of convulsion present the phenomena on which men dwell, and the eras by which they date, in the moral as well as in the physical world, where the silent process by which Nature elaborates her productions, the slow mouldering of mountains into new plains of inexhaustible fertility pass almost unobserved and unappreciated: but the attention is roused and compelled when the destructive powers of the hurricane and earthquake are let loose. But before we pass entirely from this subject, it will be well briefly to relate the further fortunes of those men to whom Athens owed, not only her greatness, but her existence.

The battle of Marathon raised Miltiades to the height of popularity. He availed himself of it to request an armament of ninety ships, with troops and money, not stating the object of his expedition to his countrymen, but merely promising to enrich them, if they would follow him, for that he would lead them to a land whence they should bring home gold without end. The Athenians, elated by this hope, consented; and he immediately sailed to the island of Paros, and laid siege to its capital, under pretence of exacting satisfaction because a Parian trireme had served in the Persian fleet. This, Herodotus says, was the pretence; but the real reason was a grudge against the Parians, because one of them, Lysagoras, had done him a bad turn with Hydarnes, the Persian governor of the Ionian coast. He therefore sent a herald to demand 100 talents (about 25,000l.), saying, that unless they complied, he would never lead away his troops till he had taken the city. But as to giving Miltiades the money, the Parians had no notion at all of that—they only thought how they might best protect themselves; and they laboured by night to double the height of the walls, wherever they seemed open to attack.

“So far,” says Herodotus, “all the Greeks agree.” The Parians had a little prodigy of their own to account for the failure of the enterprise. When Miltiades made little progress, and was in perplexity, a Parian woman, priestess of the infernal deities, came to him and bade him follow her advice, if it were of importance to him to possess the city. In obedience to her advice, he went to an eminence in front of the city, on which there was a temple dedicated to Ceres, and being unable to open the gates of the sacred enclosure, he leaped over it, and advanced towards the fence, with what specific purpose the historian relates not. On approaching the door he was seized with terror and shuddering, and hastily retreated as he had entered; but in leaping over the fence, he inflicted a severe injury upon his leg. Another story is told by Cornelius Nepos, that a forest upon the continent, which could be seen from the island, by some chance was set on fire during the night, and that the besiegers and the besieged alike concluded it a signal of coming help from the Persian monarch.[68] But all agree that Miltiades lay sick, and that the siege proceeded unfavourably, and that at last, Herodotus says on the 26th day, he broke it up, and led home the fleet. The Athenians were very angry, and shortly after his return, Xanthippus, one of the AlcmÆonid party, brought a capital charge against him, “on account of the deceit practised on the people.” Miltiades was too ill to defend himself, for his wound had mortified; but he appeared before the assembly in a litter, while his friends spoke in his behalf, expatiating on the services which he had rendered to the state, especially at Marathon. This being their chief dependence, we may presume that they felt they had a weak cause to support. The people remitted the capital punishment, but imposed a fine of fifty talents,[69] (12,500l.) Miltiades died soon after, and the fine was discharged by his celebrated son Cimon.

Such is the story as it is told by Herodotus. It is not theatrical enough for later writers, who have related how the victor of Marathon, being unable to discharge the fine imposed upon him, was cast into prison, and died there; and how his body was refused the rites of burial, until Cimon redeemed it by the sacrifice of his own liberty. The reader will do well to hesitate in receiving such ornamental passages in Grecian history, when uncorroborated by the earliest authorities. The silence of Herodotus alone would be sufficient to discredit this story. It has, however, been acutely inferred from a passage in Plato, that Miltiades was sentenced to imprisonment, probably till the fine was paid (a very necessary provision), but that this part of the sentence was not carried into effect.[70]

The death of Miltiades has been a favourite topic for declamation against popular ingratitude. If the Athenians were really deceived; if they supposed, as the promise of unbounded wealth might lead them to think, that he intended to lead them against the Persians, and their anger was directed against the misapplication of the national resources to gratify private animosity, and plunder a kindred state; then was their conduct just and honourable. No claim to public gratitude ought to be allowed to screen a public delinquent from detection; when guilt is proved, past services may fitly be alleged in mitigation or remission of punishment. But we cannot implicitly believe in this virtuous indignation; and are inclined to suspect that if Miltiades had returned with one hundred talents, he would have heard nothing of prosecution, and that the failure, not the attack upon Paros, was the true grievance. During a siege of twenty-six days there was abundant time to recall the fleet, if the enterprise had been disapproved. Nepos indeed says that he was charged with having received a bribe from Persia to withdraw; and ascribes the readiness of the Athenians to convict, to a growing dread of his talents and popularity, and fear lest he should prove a second Pisistratus. This is not improbable; it is in perfect keeping with the institution of ostracism, which seems to have been first levelled against Aristides five or six years later.

The rival statesmen, Aristides and Themistocles, men diametrically opposite as well in character as in politics, were rising to the first honours before the battle of Marathon. Aristides was one of the ten generals appointed on that occasion, and the year after held the dignity of Archon. Simple, just, and disinterested, neither for his own nor his country’s advantage would he deviate from the plain rules of honesty; and he thus earned and merited the appellation of the Just. Themistocles on the contrary was avowedly actuated by party spirit; and his desire to raise his country seems to have been secondary to his desire to raise himself. Crooked as acute in his policy, he scrupled not as to the character of his means, if they were fitted to promote his end; and his strenuous exertions in the Persian war were so skilfully contrived, as to secure for himself a kind reception from the victor, if his first object, the deliverance of Athens, failed. Two such men, of whom the former supported the aristocratical, the latter the democratical party, were not likely to remain at peace; and two or three years before the invasion of Xerxes, Themistocles had influence enough to procure a vote of ostracism against his rival. This was a species of banishment for five, ten, or twenty years, called ostracism from ostrakon, a shell, or piece of earthenware, because citizens wrote the name of him whom they wished to exile upon some such material, and cast it into a balloting box. To obtain a decree of this nature six thousand votes were required. Ostensibly it was neither a punishment nor disgrace, but merely intended as a safeguard lest even the virtues and services of great men should become dangerous to the liberty of their country. Themistocles, however, had a mind capable of laying aside private enmity when an emergency required it, and himself proposed a decree before the battle of Salamis, by which Aristides, with all other exiles, was recalled. Eminent alike, each upon his own element, as the one at Salamis, so the other commanded the Athenians at PlatÆa. On this occasion, the post of honour, the right wing, being held according to their constant custom by the LacedÆmonians, a dispute arose between the Athenians and TegeatÆ which should be placed in the left. Here Aristides displayed his prudence and moderation.[71] “We came here,” he said, “to fight, and not to talk. Since however the TegeatÆ have advanced their deeds of renown, both in old times and of late, it is necessary that we also should explain to you our claims to priority among Greeks.” Then briefly enumerating their ancient glories, and concluding with mention of Marathon, he added, “But this is no time to wrangle about place. We are ready to obey you, LacedÆmonians, wherever and against whomsoever you choose to station us; and wherever we are, will do our best. Command us, therefore, as men who will obey.” The whole army of the LacedÆmonians shouted out, that the Athenians were more worthy than the TegeatÆ to lead the left wing.

We must refer to the history of Greece for the formation of a confederacy to prosecute the war against Persia, and for the events which disgusted the members of it with Sparta, and induced them to place Athens at their head. Aristides at this time commanded her fleet; and his known probity and moderation probably had much influence in procuring this distinction, the first step to her future empire. To him was referred the delicate task of apportioning the sums which each state should contribute to the general fund: and so justly did he execute this trust that all parties were satisfied; and in later times the tributaries to the Athenian treasury referred to the assessment of Aristides as a sort of golden age. He died, it is said, in the year 467 b.c., poor, but honoured, insomuch that he was buried at the public charge, and his children were provided for at the public expense. This is the best testimony to the honesty of a man through whose hands four hundred and sixty talents passed yearly.

The career of Themistocles was of a far more varied and eventful nature. His first recorded appearance in public life was signalised by a measure pregnant with important results; and doubly meritorious, as proving that at an early age he clearly distinguished the true policy of Athens, and because it did not seem likely to advance the fortunes of an aspiring man who sought to build his greatness upon popular favour. The revenues accruing from the silver mines of Laureium, instead of being applied to any public purpose, were distributed among the citizens, and furnished a gratuity of ten drachmÆ (about eight shillings) to each man. Themistocles saw the importance of being strong at sea, and had influence or eloquence enough to obtain a decree to apply this income exclusively to ship-building, until two hundred triremes were completed with the money. This made the Athenians at once a great maritime power, whereas before they had but few ships, and those chiefly of the smaller class. This seems to have taken place the year before the battle of Marathon. “Now, after this good beginning and success, he won the citizens by degrees to bend their force to sea, declaring to them how by land they were scant able to make head against their equals, whereas by their power at sea they should not only defend themselves from the barbarous people, but moreover be able to command all Greece. Hereupon he made them good mariners, and passing seamen, as Plato saith, where before they were stout and valiant soldiers by land. This gave his enemies occasion to cast it in his teeth afterwards, that he had taken away from the Athenians the pike and target, and had brought them to the galley and the oar, and so he got the upper hand of Miltiades, who in that inveighed against him. Now after he had thus his will by bringing the sea service to pass, whether thereby he did overthrow the justice of the commonweal or not, I leave that to the philosophers to dispute. But that the preservation of all Greece stood at that time on the sea, and that the galleys only were the cause of setting up Athens again, Xerxes himself is a sufficient witness, besides other proofs that might be brought thereof.”[72]

His brilliant services were duly acknowledged. At the first Olympic festival celebrated after the defeat of Xerxes, he occupied more attention than the contending champions; and even the Spartans, while they gave the prize of valour to their own admiral Eurybiades, awarded to him that of wisdom, and though generally little gratified by the visits of strangers, invited him to LacedÆmon, and appointed a guard of honour of three hundred citizens to attend him. Continuing in command of the Athenian squadron when the allied fleet began to exact satisfaction from those islanders who, probably against their will, had followed the Persian standard, he abused his high character and station by extorting large sums as the price of his protection from those islands or persons who were obnoxious to the charge of Medism, or having favoured the Persian cause. “Let others extol Pausanias, or Xanthippus, or Leotychides; my praise shall be for Aristides, the best man of sacred Athens. For Latona detests Themistocles, the false, the unjust, the traitor; who for paltry pelf deserted the interest of Timocreon, his friend and host, and refused to restore him to his native Ialysus. Money guided the destructive course of the fleet; while the corrupt commander, restoring unjustly, persecuting unjustly, some into banishment, some to death, as the larger bribe persuaded, filled his coffers.”[73] Such were the charges brought against him by Timocreon, a Rhodian, who had been guilty of apostacy from the Grecian cause, and depended on Themistocles’ friendship to restore him to his country. In this particular case there seems to have been nothing to blame, and indeed the accusation is, that Themistocles did not pervert his power to gratify private ends: but the concurrent testimony of antiquity leads us to conclude that these charges of unjust and interested dealing rest upon a solid foundation.

We must refer to the History of Greece for an account of the bold and able measures by which he secured time to rebuild the walls of Athens, and for the improvement of the harbour PirÆeus, which under his superintendence was connected with the city by walls built of squared blocks of marble, and became the most complete naval arsenal yet known. How long he continued to enjoy his high popularity and authority is not known: but he wanted moderation to retain what he had justly acquired. He offended the people by an unworthy vanity, and disgusted the allies by rapacity and ostentation, insomuch that reports were circulated of his holding correspondence with Persia, and aiming at the tyranny of Athens, if not of all Greece. And he had powerful enemies at home to take advantage of these errors, not so much in Aristides, whose honest opposition was untinged by personal or factious animosity, as in the AlcmÆonidÆ, and in Cimon, son of Miltiades, who at this time was in the commencement of his long, and brilliant, and virtuous career. To them the democratical tenor of his policy and his personal superiority were alike distasteful; and they had influence enough to procure his banishment by ostracism for five years. This took place in the year 471 b.c. During this period, Pausanias, king of Sparta, was convicted of having engaged in a treasonable correspondence with the Persian monarch, and put to death; and the LacedÆmonians asserted that they had proof of Themistocles being concerned in the plot, and required that the same punishment might be inflicted upon him. Plutarch says that he flatly refused to join in the treason of Pausanias, but that he preserved the secret. His accusers required that he should be brought to trial, not in his own country, but before some general council of the Greek states, probably the council of Amphictyons, and they had sufficient influence with the party now in power at Athens to obtain their concurrence. Messengers were sent with authority to apprehend him, wherever they should find him. He fled first to the island of Corcyra, to which he had formerly been a benefactor. But the CorcyrÆans, alleging that they durst not keep him, conveyed him over to the continent of Epirus, and there being continually pursued, he was driven at last, like Coriolanus, to take shelter with an ancient enemy, Admetus, king of the Molossians. That prince being absent, he awaited his return seated before the domestic altar, holding in his arms his infant son: such being esteemed the most sacred and binding method of supplication among the Molossians. Admetus was touched, and, while he was able, gave the fugitive a secure retreat; but the Athenian and LacedÆmonian commissioners tracked his steps, and though his protector refused to give him up, he was obliged to fly. He now crossed the continent to Pydna, a seaport of Macedonia, and finding there a ship bound for Ionia, he embarked, and was carried by stress of weather among the Athenian fleet then besieging Naxos.[74] Fearing to be recognised, he called the master aside, told him who he was, and why he fled, and declared that if he were taken, he would charge him with having been bribed to favour his escape. To avoid this, it was only requisite to confine the sailors closely to the ship until the weather served them to be gone. The master consented, and instead of landing at night, as was usual with Grecian mariners, they lay a day and night tempest-tossed at sea; and at length arrived safely at Ephesus. Themistocles now reaped the benefit of his double-dealing. He kept himself concealed, however, at first, because the Persians had set a price of two hundred talents upon his head, until he received an answer to the following letter, which he wrote to Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, who had newly succeeded to his father’s throne: “I, Themistocles, am coming to thee, who of all the Grecians, as long as I was forced to resist thy father that invaded me, have done your house the most damage; yet the benefits I did him were more after once I with safety, he with danger, was to make retreat. And both a good turn is already due to me (writing here how he had forewarned him of the Grecians’ departure out of Salamis, and ascribing the not breaking of the bridge falsely to himself), and I now come prepared to do thee great services, being persecuted by the Grecians for thy friendship’s sake. But I desire to have a year’s respite, that I may declare unto thee the cause of my coming myself.”

“The king, as is reported, wondered at his design, and commanded him to do as he said. In this time of respite he learned as much as he could of the language and fashions of the place, and a year after, coming to the court, he was great with the king, more than ever had been any Grecian before; both for his former estimation, and the hope that he gave of bringing Greece into subjection, but especially in the proof that he had given of his wisdom. For Themistocles was a man in whom most truly was manifested the strength of natural judgment, wherein he had something worthy of admiration, different from other men. For by his natural prudence, without the help of instruction either before or after, he was both best able to form an opinion on the spur of the moment with least deliberation, and the best diviner of the issue of matters to come. Of those things he was engaged in, he could give a good account; and what he was unpractised in, he was not to seek how to judge of conveniently. Also he foresaw, no man better, what was best or worse in any case that was doubtful. And to say all in few words, this man, by the natural goodness of his wit, and quickness of deliberation, was the ablest of all men to tell what was fit to be done on a sudden. But falling sick he ended his life: some say he died voluntarily by poison, because he thought himself unable to perform what he had promised to the king. His monument is in Magnesia in Asia, in the marketplace: for he had the government of that country, the king having bestowed upon him Magnesia, which yielded him fifty talents yearly for his bread, and Lampsacus for his wine (for this city was then thought to have store of wine), and Myus for his meat. His bones are said by his kinsman to have been brought home by his own appointment, and buried in Attica, unknown to the Athenians: for it was not lawful to bury one there that had fled for treason. These were the ends of Pausanias the LacedÆmonian and Themistocles the Athenian, the most famous men of all the Grecians of their time.”[75]

“Such were the ends of the two most famous men of Greece in their time.” That of Pausanias moves little compassion: he was a weak and vicious man, raised to an undeserved celebrity by hereditary rank, and by the mighty events with which the age was pregnant. He was a traitor, and he perished as such, worthy of pity only for the lingering torment of his death. Much more touching is the fate of Themistocles, driven on an unjust accusation, as we believe, from place to place, and at last forced to seek shelter from those to whom he had done the deepest harm, and thus apparently to justify those accusations which alone had reduced him to so unworthy a step. Melancholy we must needs call the close of his life, in spite of all the splendour that surrounded it: for who can believe that to such a man wealth and luxury could compensate for exile, for the loss of all share and interest in the greatness which he had himself founded, and was now compelled to surrender into the guidance of unfriendly hands? The anecdote relating to his burial furnishes a touching illustration of the nature of his feelings at the close of life, and is itself almost sufficient to refute the charge of treason. Men seek not so fondly to be restored even in death to their native land, when they have deliberately resolved on subjecting it to the miseries of conquest by a foreign, in Grecian language, a barbarian race. That he had so far temporised with Pausanias as to give the Spartans plausible ground for their accusation is probable, and consistent with the tortuous policy which, unfortunately for his glory in honest men’s eyes, he always pursued. But to believe that he seriously laboured to establish that dominion which it was his boast to have overthrown; to pull down the fabric of Athenian greatness which his own hand had raised, and with which his glory was indissolubly connected; this would require the most cogent proofs, in place of which we have nothing but a bare report. We may derive a valuable moral from comparing the close of his life with that of Aristides. The latter, after a life spent in the highest commands, with unbounded opportunities for amassing wealth, died in poverty. Themistocles’ property, when he entered on public life, was valued at three talents; when he fled to Persia his effects were confiscated to the value of eighty or one hundred talents, and yet it is said that his friends saved the greater part, and remitted them into Asia to him. Yet who dare avow that he would choose the wealth and fate of Themistocles in preference to the honourable poverty of Aristides? who, that is not entirely devoted to wealth, could even feel such a preference? True it is that the crooked course of Themistocles procured a brilliant reception in the Persian court, when all other countries were closed against him: but it is also true that a more disinterested and open life would have obviated the necessity of seeking a foreign refuge. The rancour of party spirit might then have exiled him for a time, as it exiled Aristides, but it could have done no more. All Greece would have exclaimed in mingled anger and contempt against him who should have dared to connect the name of Aristides with a charge of treason: all Greece was ready to believe Themistocles guilty on the sole evidence of his selfish and intriguing spirit.

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