THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. I. THE DISGRACE AND DEATH OF THEMISTOCLES. Six years after the battle of Platæa the career of Xerxes was terminated by assassination, and his son, Artaxerxes Longim'anus, succeeded to the throne. In the mean time Athens had been rebuilt and fortified by Themistocles, and the Piræus (the port of Athens) enclosed within a wall as large in extent as that of Athens, but of greater height and thickness. But Themistocles, by his selfish and arbitrary use of power, provoked the enmity of a large body of his countrymen; and although he was acquitted of the charge of treasonable inclinations toward Persia, popular feeling soon after became so strong against him that he was condemned to exile by the same process of ostracism that he had directed against Aristides, and he retired to Argos (471 B.C.) Some time before this a Grecian force, composed of Athenians under Aristides, and Cimon the son of Miltiades, and Spartans under Pausanias the victor of Platæa, waged a successful war upon the Persian dependencies of the Ægean, and the coasts of Asia Minor. The Ionian cities were aided in a successful revolt, and Cyprus and Byzantium--the latter now Constantinople--fell into the hands of the Grecians. Pausanias, who was at the head of the whole armament, now began to show signs of treasonable conduct, which was more fully unfolded by a communication that he addressed to the Persian court, seeking the daughter of Xerxes in marriage, and promising to bring Sparta and the whole of Greece under Persian dominion. When news of the treason of Pausanias reached Sparta, he was immediately recalled, and, though no definite proof was at first furnished against him, his guilt was subsequently established, and he perished from starvation in the Temple of Minerva, whither he had fled for refuge, and where he was immured by the eph'ors. The fate of Pausanias involved that of Themistocles. In searching for farther traces of the former's plot some correspondence was discovered that furnished sufficient evidence of the complicity of Themistocles in the crime, and he was immediately accused by the Spartans, who insisted upon his being punished. The Athenians sent ambassadors to arrest him and bring him to Athens; but Themistocles fled from Argos, and finally sought refuge at the court of Persia. He died at Magne'sia, in Asia Minor, which had been appointed his place of residence by Artaxerxes, and a splendid monument was raised to his memory; but in the time of the Roman empire a tomb was pointed out by the sea-side, within the port of Piræus, which was generally believed to contain his remains, and of which the comic poet PLATO thus wrote: