Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
XXXII. Themistokles left five children, Neokles, Diokles, Archeptolis,
Polyeuktus, Kleophantus, by his first wife Archippe, who was the
daughter of Lysander, of the township of Alopekai. Of these Kleophantus
is mentioned by Plato the philosopher as being an excellent horseman,
but otherwise worthless. Of the elder ones, Neokles was bitten by a
horse and died while still a child, and Diokles was adopted by his
grandfather Lysander. He also had several daughters by his second wife,
of whom Mnesiptolema married Archeptolis, her father's half-brother;
Italia married Panthoides of the island of Chios, and Sybaris married
Nikomedes, an Athenian. After Themistokles's death, his nephew
Phrasikles sailed to Magnesia, and with her brother's consent married
Nicomache, and also took charge of the youngest child, who was named
Asia.
The people of Magnesia show a splendid tomb of Themistokles in their
market-place; but with regard to the fate of his remains we must pay no
attention to Andokides, who in his address to his friends, tells us that
the Athenians stole them and tore them to pieces, because he would tell
any falsehood to excite the hatred of the nobles against the people.
Phylarchus, too, writes his history in such dramatic form that he all
but resorts to the actual machinery of the stage, bringing forward one
Neokles, and Demopolis as the children of Themistokles to make a
touching scene, which anyone can see is untrue. Diodorus the
topographer, in his treatise 'On Tombs' says, more as a conjecture than
as knowing it for a fact, that in the great harbour of Peiraeus a kind
of elbow juts out from the promontory of Alkimus, and that when one
sails past this, going inwards, where the sea is most sheltered, there
is a large foundation, and upon it the tomb of Themistokles, shaped like
an altar. It is thought that the comic poet Plato alludes to this in the
following verses:
"By the sea's margin, by the watery strand,
Thy monument, Themistokles, shall stand;
By this directed to thy native shore
The merchant shall convey his freighted store;
And when our fleets are summoned to the fight,
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight."
The descendants of Themistokles are given certain privileges at Magnesia
even to the present day, for I know that Themistokles, an Athenian, my
friend and fellow-student in the school of Ammonias the philosopher,
enjoyed them.
LIFE OF CAMILLUS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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