With this expansion both of democratical feeling and of military activity at Athens, Aristeidês appears to have sympathized; and the popularity thus insured to him, probably heightened by some regret for his previous ostracism, was calculated to acquire permanence from his straightforward and incorruptible character, now brought into strong relief from his function as assessor to the new Delian confederacy. On the other hand, the ascendency of Themistoklês, though so often exalted by his unrivalled political genius and daring, as well as by the signal value of his public recommendations, was as often overthrown by his duplicity of means and unprincipled thirst for money. New political opponents sprung up against him, men sympathizing with Aristeidês, and far more violent in their antipathy than Aristeidês himself. Of these, the chief were Kimon—son of Miltiades—and Alkmæon; moreover, it seems that the Lacedæmonians, though full of esteem for Themistoklês immediately after the battle of Salamis, had now become extremely hostile to him,—a change which may be sufficiently explained from his stratagem respecting the fortifications of Athens, and his subsequent ambitious projects in reference to the Peiræus. The Lacedæmonian influence, then not inconsiderable in Athens, was employed to second the political combinations against him.[554] He is said to have given offence by manifestations of personal vanity,—by continual boasting of his great services to the state, and by the erection of a private chapel, close to his own house, in honor of Artemis Aristobulê, or Artemis of admirable counsel; just as Pausanias had irritated the Lacedæmonians by inscribing his own single name on the Delphian tripod, and as the friends of Aristeidês had displeased the Athenians by endless encomiums upon his justice.[555] But the main cause of his discredit was, the prostitution of his great influence for arbitrary and corrupt purposes. In the unsettled condition of so many different Grecian communities, recently emancipated from Persia, when there was past misrule to avenge, wrong-doers to be deposed and perhaps punished, exiles to be restored, and all the disturbance and suspicions accompanying so great a change of political condition as well as of foreign policy,—the influence of the leading men at Athens must have been great in determining the treatment of particular individuals. Themistoklês, placed at the head of an Athenian squadron and sailing among the islands, partly for the purposes of war against Persia, partly for organizing the new confederacy,—is affirmed to have accepted bribes without scruple, for executing sentences just and unjust,—restoring some citizens, expelling others, and even putting some to death. We learn this from a friend and guest of Themistoklês,—the poet Timokreon of Ialysus in Rhodes, who had expected his own restoration from the Athenian commander, but found that it was thwarted by a bribe of three talents from his opponents; so that he was still kept in exile on the charge of medism. The assertions of Timokreon, personally incensed on this ground against Themistoklês, are doubtless to be considered as passionate and exaggerated: nevertheless, they are a valuable memorial of the feelings of the time, and are far too much in harmony with the general character of this eminent man to allow of our disbelieving them entirely. Timokreon is as emphatic in his admiration of Aristeidês as in his censure of Themistoklês, whom he denounces as “a lying and unjust traitor.”[556]

Such conduct as that described by this new Archilochus, even making every allowance for exaggeration, must have caused Themistoklês to be both hated and feared among the insular allies, whose opinion was now of considerable importance to the Athenians. A similar sentiment grew up partially against him in Athens itself, and appears to have been connected with suspicions of treasonable inclinations towards the Persians. As the Persians could offer the highest bribes, a man open to corruption might naturally be suspected of inclinations towards their cause; and if Themistoklês had rendered preëminent service against them, so also had Pausanias, whose conduct had undergone so fatal a change for the worse. It was the treason of Pausanias, suspected and believed against him by the Athenians even when he was in command at Byzantium, though not proved against him at Sparta until long afterwards,—which first seems to have raised the presumption of medism against Themistoklês also, when combined with the corrupt proceedings which stained his public conduct: we must recollect, also, that Themistoklês had given some color to these presumptions, even by the stratagems in reference to Xerxes, which wore a double-faced aspect, capable of being construed either in a Persian or in a Grecian sense. The Lacedæmonians, hostile to Themistoklês since the time when he had outwitted them respecting the walls of Athens,—and fearing him also as a supposed accomplice of the suspected Pausanias,—procured the charge of medism to be preferred against him at Athens; by secret instigations, and, as it is said, by bribes, to his political opponents.[557] But no satisfactory proof could be furnished of the accusation, which Themistoklês himself strenuously denied, not without emphatic appeals to his illustrious services. In spite of violent invectives against him from Alkmæon and Kimon, tempered, indeed, by a generous moderation on the part of Aristeidês,[558] his defence was successful. He carried the people with him and was acquitted of the charge. Nor was he merely acquitted, but, as might naturally be expected, a reaction took place in his favor: his splendid qualities and exploits were brought impressively before the public mind, and he seemed for the time to acquire greater ascendency than ever.[559]

Such a charge, and such a failure, must have exasperated to the utmost the animosity between him and his chief opponents,—Aristeidês, Kimon, Alkmæon, and others; nor can we wonder that they were anxious to get rid of him by ostracism. In explaining this peculiar process, I have already stated that it could never be raised against any one individual separately and ostensibly,—and that it could never be brought into operation at all, unless its necessity were made clear, not merely to violent party men, but also to the assembled senate and people, including, of course, a considerable proportion of the more moderate citizens. We may well conceive that the conjuncture was deemed by many dispassionate Athenians well suited for the tutelary intervention of ostracism, the express benefit of which consisted in its separating political opponents when the antipathy between them threatened to push one or the other into extra-constitutional proceedings,—especially when one of those parties was Themistoklês, a man alike vast in his abilities and unscrupulous in his morality. Probably also there were not a few who wished to revenge the previous ostracism of Aristeidês: and lastly, the friends of Themistoklês himself, elate with his acquittal and his seemingly augmented popularity, might indulge hopes that the vote of ostracism would turn out in his favor, and remove one or other of his chief political opponents. From all these circumstances we learn without astonishment, that a vote of ostracism was soon after resorted to. It ended in the temporary banishment of Themistoklês.

He retired into exile, and was residing at Argos, whither he carried a considerable property, yet occasionally visiting other parts of Peloponnesus,[560]—when the exposure and death of Pausanias, together with the discovery of his correspondence, took place at Sparta. Among this correspondence were found proofs, which Thucydidês seems to have considered as real and sufficient, of the privity of Themistoklês. According to Ephorus and others, he is admitted to have been solicited by Pausanias, and to have known his plans,—but to have kept them secret while refusing to coöperate in them,[561]—but probably after his exile he took a more decided share in them than before; being well-placed for that purpose at Argos, a city not only unfriendly to Sparta, but strongly believed to have been in collusion with Xerxes at his invasion of Greece. On this occasion the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens, publicly to prefer a formal charge of treason against him, and to urge the necessity of trying him as a Pan-Hellenic criminal before the synod of the allies assembled at Sparta.[562] Whether this latter request would have been granted, or whether Themistoklês would have been tried at Athens, we cannot tell: for no sooner was he apprized that joint envoys from Sparta and Athens had been despatched to arrest him, than he fled forthwith from Argos to Korkyra. The inhabitants of that island, though owing gratitude to him and favorably disposed, could not venture to protect him against the two most powerful states in Greece, but sent him to the neighboring continent. Here, however, being still tracked and followed by the envoys, he was obliged to seek protection from a man whom he had formerly thwarted in a demand at Athens, and who had become his personal enemy,—Admêtus, king of the Molossians. Fortunately for him, at the moment when he arrived, Admêtus was not at home; and Themistoklês, becoming a suppliant to his wife, conciliated her sympathy so entirely, that she placed her child in his arms and planted him at the hearth in the full solemnity of supplication to soften her husband. As soon as Admêtus returned, Themistoklês revealed his name, his pursuers, and his danger,—entreating protection as a helpless suppliant in the last extremity. He appealed to the generosity of the Epirotic prince not to take revenge on a man now defenceless, for offence given under such very different circumstances; and for an offence too, after all, not of capital moment, while the protection now entreated was to the suppliant a matter of life or death. Admêtus raised him up from the hearth with the child in his arms,—an evidence that he accepted the appeal and engaged to protect him; refusing to give him up to the envoys, and at last only sending him away on the expression of his own wish to visit the king of Persia. Two Macedonian guides conducted him across the mountains to Pydna, in the Thermaic gulf, where he found a merchant-ship about to set sail for the coast of Asia Minor, and took a passage on board; neither the master nor the crew knowing his name. An untoward storm drove the vessel to the island of Naxos, at that moment besieged by an Athenian armament: had he been forced to land there, he would of course have been recognized and seized, but his wonted subtlety did not desert him. Having communicated both his name and the peril which awaited him, he conjured the master of the ship to assist in saving him, and not to suffer any one of the crew to land; menacing that if by any accident he were discovered, he would bring the master to ruin along with himself, by representing him as an accomplice induced by money to facilitate the escape of Themistoklês: on the other hand, in case of safety, he promised a large reward. Such promises and threats weighed with the master, who controlled his crew, and forced them to beat about during a day and a night off the coast, without seeking to land. After that dangerous interval, the storm abated, and the ship reached Ephesus in safety.[563]

Thus did Themistoklês, after a series of perils, find himself safe on the Persian side of the Ægean. At Athens, he was proclaimed a traitor, and his property confiscated: nevertheless, as it frequently happened in cases of confiscation, his friends secreted a considerable sum, and sent it over to him in Asia, together with the money which he had left at Argos; so that he was thus enabled liberally to reward the ship-captain who had preserved him. With all this deduction, the property which he possessed of a character not susceptible of concealment, and which was therefore actually seized, was found to amount to eighty talents, according to Theophrastus,—to one hundred talents, according to Theopompus. In contrast with this large sum, it is melancholy to learn that he had begun his political career with a property not greater than three talents.[564] The poverty of Aristeidês at the end of his life presents an impressive contrast to the enrichment of his rival.

The escape of Themistoklês, and his adventures in Persia, appear to have formed a favorite theme for the fancy and exaggeration of authors a century afterwards: we have thus many anecdotes which contradict either directly or by implication the simple narrative of Thucydidês. Thus we are told that at the moment when he was running away from the Greeks, the Persian king also had proclaimed a reward of two hundred talents for his head, and that some Greeks on the coast of Asia were watching to take him for this reward: that he was forced to conceal himself strictly near the coast, until means were found to send him up to Susa in a closed litter, under pretence that it was a woman for the king’s harem: that Mandanê, sister of Xerxes, insisted upon having him delivered up to her as an expiation for the loss of her son at the battle of Salamis: that he learned Persian so well, and discoursed in it so eloquently, as to procure for himself an acquittal from the Persian judges, when put upon his trial through the importunity of Mandanê: that the officers of the king’s household at Susa, and the satraps in his way back, threatened him with still farther perils: that he was admitted to see the king in person, after having received a lecture from the chamberlain on the indispensable duty of falling down before him to do homage, etc., with several other uncertified details,[565] which make us value more highly the narrative of Thucydidês. Indeed, Ephorus, Deinô, Kleitarchus, and Herakleidês, from whom these anecdotes appear mostly to be derived, even affirmed that Themistoklês had found Xerxes himself alive and seen him: whereas, Thucydidês and Charon, the two contemporary authors, for the former is nearly contemporary, asserted that he had found Xerxes recently dead, and his son Artaxerxes on the throne.

According to Thucydidês, the eminent exile does not seem to have been exposed to the least danger in Persia. He presented himself as a deserter from Greece, and was accepted as such: moreover,—what is more strange, though it seems true,—he was received as an actual benefactor of the Persian king, and a sufferer from the Greeks on account of such dispositions,—in consequence of his communications made to Xerxes respecting the intended retreat of the Greeks from Salamis, and respecting the contemplated destruction of the Hellespontine bridge. He was conducted by some Persians on the coast up to Susa, where he addressed a letter to the king couched in the following terms, such as probably no modern European king would tolerate except from a Quaker: “I, Themistoklês, am come to thee, having done to thy house more mischief than any other Greek, as long as I was compelled in my own defence to resist the attack of thy father,—but having also done him yet greater good, when I could do so with safety to myself, and when his retreat was endangered. Reward is yet owing to me for my past service: moreover, I am now here, chased away by the Greeks, in consequence of my attachment to thee,[566] but able still to serve thee with great effect. I wish to wait a year, and then to come before thee in person to explain my views.”

Whether the Persian interpreters, who read this letter to Artaxerxes Longimanus, exactly rendered its brief and direct expression, we cannot say. But it made a strong impression upon him, combined with the previous reputation of the writer, and he willingly granted the prayer for delay: though we shall not readily believe that he was so transported as to show his joy by immediate sacrifice to the gods, by an unusual measure of convivial indulgence, and by crying out thrice in his sleep, “I have got Themistoklês the Athenian,”—as some of Plutarch’s authors informed him.[567] In the course of the year granted, Themistoklês had learned so much of the Persian language and customs as to be able to communicate personally with the king, and acquire his confidence: no Greek, says Thucydidês, had ever before attained such a commanding influence and position at the Persian court. His ingenuity was now displayed in laying out schemes for the subjugation of Greece to Persia, which were eminently captivating to the monarch, who rewarded him with a Persian wife and large presents, sending him down to Magnesia, on the Mæander, not far from the coast of Ionia. The revenues of the district round that town, amounting to the large sum of fifty talents yearly, were assigned to him for bread: those of the neighboring seaport of Myus, for articles of condiment to his bread, which was always accounted the main nourishment: those of Lampsakus on the Hellespont, for wine.[568] Not knowing the amount of these two latter items, we cannot determine how much revenue Themistoklês received altogether: but there can be no doubt; judging from the revenues of Magnesia alone, that he was a great pecuniary gainer by his change of country. After having visited various parts of Asia,[569] he lived for a certain time at Magnesia, in which place his family joined him from Athens. How long his residence at Magnesia lasted we do not know, but seemingly long enough to acquire local estimation and leave mementos behind him. He at length died of sickness, when sixty-five years old, without having taken any step towards the accomplishment of those victorious campaigns which he had promised to Artaxerxes. That sickness was the real cause of his death, we may believe on the distinct statement of Thucydidês;[570] who at the same time notices a rumor partially current in his own time, of poison voluntarily taken, from painful consciousness on the part of Themistoklês himself that the promises made could never be performed,—a farther proof of the general tendency to surround the last years of this distinguished man with impressive adventures, and to dignify his last moments with a revived feeling, not unworthy of his earlier patriotism. The report may possibly have been designedly circulated by his friends and relatives, in order to conciliate some tenderness towards his memory (his sons still continued citizens at Athens, and his daughters were married there). These friends farther stated that they had brought back his bones to Attica, at his own express command, and buried them privately without the knowledge of the Athenians; no condemned traitor being permitted to be buried in Attic soil. If, however, we even suppose that this statement was true, no one could point out with certainty the spot wherein such interment had taken place: nor does it seem, when we mark the cautious expressions of Thucydidês,[571] that he himself was satisfied of the fact: moreover, we may affirm with confidence that the inhabitants of Magnesia, when they showed the splendid sepulchral monument erected in honor of Themistoklês in their own market-place, were persuaded that his bones were really inclosed within it.

Aristeidês died about three or four years after the ostracism of Themistoklês;[572] but respecting the place and manner of his death, there were several contradictions among the authors whom Plutarch had before him. Some affirmed that he perished on foreign service in the Euxine sea; others, that he died at home, amidst the universal esteem and grief of his fellow-citizens. A third story, confined to the single statement of Kraterus, and strenuously rejected by Plutarch, represents Aristeidês as having been falsely accused before the Athenian judicature and condemned to a fine of fifty minæ, on the allegation of having taken bribes during the assessment of the tribute upon the allies,—which fine he was unable to pay, and was therefore obliged to retire to Ionia, where he died. Dismissing this last story, we find nothing certain about his death except one fact,—but that fact at the same time the most honorable of all,—that he died very poor. It is even asserted that he did not leave enough to pay funeral expenses,—that a sepulchre was provided for him at Phalêrum at the public cost, besides a handsome donation to his son Lysimachus, and a dowry to each of his two daughters. In the two or three ensuing generations, however, his descendants still continued poor, and even at that remote day, some of them received aid out of the public purse, from the recollection of their incorruptible ancestor. Near a century and a half afterwards, a poor man, named Lysimachus, descendant of the just Aristeidês, was to be seen at Athens, near the chapel of Iacchus, carrying a mysterious tablet, and obtaining his scanty fee of two oboli for interpreting the dreams of the passers by: Demetrius the Phalerean procured from the people, for the mother and aunt of this poor man, a small daily allowance.[573] On all these points the contrast is marked when we compare Aristeidês with Themistoklês. The latter, having distinguished himself by ostentatious cost at Olympia, and by a choregic victory at Athens, with little scruple as to the means of acquisition,—ended his life at Magnesia in dishonorable affluence, greater than ever, and left an enriched posterity both at that place and at Athens. More than five centuries afterwards, his descendant, the Athenian Themistoklês, attended the lectures of the philosopher Ammonius at Athens, as the comrade and friend of Plutarch himself.[574]