Themistocles   

persuade him to send this statue back to Athens, which so enraged
the Persian officer, that he told him he would write the king word
of it. Themistocles, being affrighted hereat, got access to his wives
and concubines, by presents of money to whom he appeased the fury
of the governor; and afterwards behaved with more reserve and circumspection,
fearing the envy of the Persians, and did not, as Theopompus writes,
continue to travel about Asia, but lived quietly in his own house
in Magnesia, where for a long time he passed his days in great security,
being courted by all, and enjoying rich presents, and honoured equally
with the greatest persons in the Persian empire; the king, at that
time, not minding his concerns with Greece, being taken up with the
affairs of inner Asia.
But when Egypt revolted, being assisted by the Athenians, and the
Greek galleys roved about as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Cimon
had made himself master of the seas, the king turned his thoughts
thither, and, bending his mind chiefly to resist the Greeks, and to
check the growth of their power against him, began to raise forces,
and send out commanders, and to despatch messengers to Themistocles
at Magnesia, to put him in mind of his promise, and to summon him
to act against the Greeks. Yet this did not increase his hatred nor
exasperate him against the Athenians, neither was he in any way elevated
with the thoughts of the honour and powerful command he was to have
in this war; but judging, perhaps, that the object would not be attained,
the Greeks having at that time, beside other great commanders, Cimon,
in particular, who was gaining wonderful military successes; but chiefly
being ashamed to sully the glory of his former great actions, and
of his many victories and trophies, he determined to put a conclusion
to his life, agreeable to its previous course. He sacrificed to the
gods, and invited his friends; and, having entertained them and shaken
hands with them, drank bull's blood, as is the usual story; as others
state, a poison producing instant death; and ended his days in the
city of Magnesia, having lived sixty-five years, most of which he
had spent in politics and in wars, in government and command. The
king being informed of the cause and manner of his death, admired
him more than ever, and continued to show kindness to his friends
and relations.
Themistocles left three sons by Archippe, daughter to Lysander of
Alopece,- Archeptolis, Poleuctus, and Cleophantus. Plato, the philosopher,
mentions the last as a most excellent horseman, but otherwise insignificant
person; of two sons yet older than these, Neocles and Diocles, Neocles
died when he was young by the bite of a horse, and Diocles was adopted
by his grandfather, Lysander. He had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema,
whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother
by another mother; Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island
of Chios; Sybaris to Nicomedes the Athenian. After the death of Themistocles,
his nephew, Phrasicles, went to Magnesia, and married, with her brothers'
consent, another daughter, Nicomache, and took charge of her sister
Asia, the youngest of all the children.
The Magnesians possess a splendid sepulchre of Themistocles, placed
in the middle of their market-place. It is not worth while taking
notice of what Andocides states in his address to his Friends concerning
his remains, how the Athenian robbed his tomb, and threw his ashes
into the air; for he feigns this, to exasperate the oligarchical faction
against the people; and there is no man living but knows that Phylarchus
simply invents in his history, where he all but uses an actual stage
machine, and brings in Neocles and Demopolis as the sons of Themistocles,
to incite or move compassion, as if he were writing a tragedy. Diodorus
the cosmographer says, in his work on Tombs, but by conjecture rather
than of certain knowledge, that near to the haven of Piraeus where
the land runs out like an elbow from the promontory of Alcimus, when
you have doubled the cape and passed inward where the sea is always
calm, there is a large piece of masonry, and upon this the Tomb of
Themistocles, in the shape of an altar; and Plato the comedian confirms
this, he believes, in these verses:-