and be obliged to risk a battle in the open sea, which would be doubly prejudicial to an armament inferior both in the number and the swiftness of its vessels. By remaining, on the contrary, they gained the advantage of fighting in a strait; they preserved Salamis, where were the families of a large part of the Athenians; and protected Peloponnesus as effectually as if they fell back and fought at the Isthmus, without committing the error of suffering the enemy to advance unopposed so far. Moreover, if they obtained the victory, there was reason to expect that the enemy would never advance beyond Attica; and thus they would preserve from ravage Megara, Ægina, and above all Salamis, which was marked out by an oracle as the spot where they should overcome their enemy. Here Adeimantus again attacked him, bidding him be silent, as a man without a country, and objected to Eurybiades putting the proposal of one without a city to the vote; saying that Themistocles must first show what city he represented, then come and compare his own with others’ opinions. Themistocles replied in anger, with bitter taunts against Adeimantus and the Corinthians, that the Athenians possessed both the better country and the better city, so long as they had two hundred ships equipped for service, which no Grecian power, go where they would, could repel. He then turned to Eurybiades, and spoke with great earnestness. “If you abide here, and abiding, shall approve your courage—well: if not, you will be the ruin of Greece. For our ships bear the burden of the war. Be advised by me therefore. If not, we will immediately take our domestics, and make sail for Siris in Italy, which of old time is ours, and as oracles say is destined to be colonised by us: and you being abandoned by allies such as we are, will remember my words.” The concluding argument was irresistible, and they resolved to remain.[50]