Themistocles

Family: Athenian · Role: Athenian statesman · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 4 · Part 1

At Lacedaemon, Themistocles received exceptional honours from the Lacedaemonians. Back in Athens, he directed the Athenians to delay sending his colleagues to Sparta until the city wall could provide a defence; Abronichus and Aristides later joined him with news that it was sufficiently advanced. He also persuaded the Athenians to finish Piraeus’s walls, advancing his plan for Athenian naval power.

During the inquiry into Pausanias’s Medism, evidence implicated Themistocles. The Lacedaemonians demanded that Athens punish him, and the Athenians consented. After learning he was pursued, he fled to Corcyra, but the Corcyraeans refused him shelter and conveyed him to the opposite continent. Though he and Admetus were not on friendly terms, Themistocles sought refuge at his house; Admetus’s wife made him a suppliant. When the Lacedaemonians arrived, the king refused to surrender him and sent him by land toward Pydna.

Themistocles appealed to Artaxerxes, saying he was “pursued by the Hellenes for my friendship for you.” Artaxerxes gave him a year before he had to explain his purpose in person, and Themistocles later attained very high consideration at court. The King made him governor and granted him revenues from Magnesia, Lampsacus, and Myos. Themistocles died at Asiatic Magnesia; disease was given as the real cause.