Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
impart." Artabanus asking him, "Who must we tell him that you are? for
your words signify you to be no ordinary person," Themistocles answered,
"No man, O Artabanus, must be informed of this before the king himself."
Thus Phanias relates; to which Eratosthenes, in his treatise on Riches,
adds, that it was by the means of a woman of Eretria, who was kept by
Artabanus, that he obtained this audience and interview with him.
When he was introduced to the king, and had paid his reverence to him,
he stood silent, till the king commanding the interpreter to ask him who
he was, he replied, "O king, I am Themistocles the Athenian, driven
into banishment by the Greeks. The evils that I have done to the
Persians are numerous; but my benefits to them yet greater, in
withholding the Greeks from pursuit, so soon as the deliverance of my
own country allowed me to show kindness also to you. I come with a mind
suited to my present calamities; prepared alike for favors and for
anger; to welcome your gracious reconciliation, and to deprecate your
wrath. Take my own countrymen for witnesses of the services I have done
for Persia, and make use of this occasion to show the world your virtue,
rather than to satisfy your indignation. If you save me, you will save
your suppliant; if otherwise, will destroy an enemy of the Greeks." He
talked also of divine admonitions, such as the vision which he saw at
Nicogenes's house, and the direction given him by the oracle of Dodona,
where Jupiter commanded him to go to him that had a name like his, by
which he understood that he was sent from Jupiter to him, seeing that
they both were great, and had the name of kings.
The king heard him attentively, and, though he admired his temper and
courage, gave him no answer at that time; but, when he was with his
intimate friends, rejoiced in his great good fortune, and esteemed
himself very happy in this, and prayed to his god Arimanius, that all
his enemies might be ever of the same mind with the Greeks, to abuse and
expel the bravest men amongst them. Then he sacrificed to the gods, and
presently fell to drinking, and was so well pleased, that in the night,
in the middle of his sleep, he cried out for joy three times, "I have
Themistocles the Athenian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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