Themistocles   

came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens
again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself
would be sufficient evidence, who, though his land-forces were still
entire, after his defeat at sea, fled away, and thought himself no
longer able to encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left
Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring
them into subjection, but to hinder them from pursuing him.
Themistocles is said to have been eager in the acquisition of riches,
according to some, that he might be the more liberal; for loving to
sacrifice often, and to be splendid in his entertainment of strangers,
he required a plentiful revenue; yet he is accused by others of having
been parsimonious and sordid to that degree that he would sell provisions
which were sent to him as a present. He desired Diphilides, who was
a breeder of horses, to give him a colt, and when he refused it, threatened
that in a short time he would turn his house into a wooden horse,
intimating that he would stir up dispute and litigation between him
and some of his relations.
He went beyond all men in the passion for distinction. When he was
still young and unknown in the world, he entreated Episcles of Hermione,
who had a good hand at the lute and was much sought after by the Athenians,
to come and practise at home with him, being ambitious of having people
inquire after his house and frequent his company. When he came to
the Olympic games, and was so splendid in his equipage and entertainments,
in his rich tents and furniture, that he strove to outdo Cimon, he
displeased the Greeks, who thought that such magnificence might be
allowed in one who was a young man and of a great family, but was
a great piece of insolence in one as yet undistinguished, and without
title or means for making any such display. In a dramatic contest,
the play he paid for won the price, which was then a matter that excited
much emulation; he put up a tablet in record of it, with the inscription:
"Themistocles of Phrearrhi was at the charge of it; Phrynichus made
it; Adimantus was archon." He was well liked by the common people,
would salute every particular citizen by his own name, and always
show himself a just judge in questions of business between private
men; he said to Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired something
of him, when he was commander of the army, that was not reasonable,
"Simonides, you would be no good poet if you wrote false measure,
nor should I be a good magistrate if for favour I made false law."
and at another time, laughing at Simonides, he said, that he was a
man of little judgment to speak against the Corinthians, who were
inhabitants of a great city, and to have his own picture drawn so
often, having so ill-looking a face.
Gradually growing to be great, and winning the favour of the people,
he at last gained the day with his faction over that of Aristides,
and procured his banishment by ostracism. When the king of Persia
was now advancing against Greece, and the Athenians were in consultation
who should be general, and many withdrew themselves of their own accord,
being terrified with the greatness of the danger, there was one Epicydes,
a popular speaker, son to Euphemides a man of an elegant tongue, but
of a faint heart, and a slave to riches who was desirous of the command,
and was looked upon to be in a fair way to carry it by the number
of votes; but Themistocles, fearing that, if the command should fall
into such hands, all would be lost, bought off Epicydes and his pretensions,
it is said, for a sum of money.
When the king of Persia sent messengers into Greece, with an interpreter,
to demand earth and water, as an acknowledgment of subjection, Themistocles,
by the consent of the people, seized upon the interpreter, and put
him to death, for presuming to publish the barbarian orders and decrees
in the Greek language; this is one of the actions he is commended
for, as also for what he did to Arthmius of Zelea, who brought gold
from the king of Persia to corrupt the Greeks, and was, by an order
from Themistocles, degraded and disfranchised, he and his children
and his posterity; but that which most of all redounded to his credit
was, that he put an end to all the civil wars of Greece, composed