At the same time, the complete assumption of this truth is difficult, in view of the silence of Thucydides on the matter. #THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THEMISTOCLES.# It is plain that he considered the charges sufficiently groundless to be ignored, and this in spite of the fact that the course of his history forced him to recount the least savoury portion of the great man’s career. Nor can it be assumed that the historian’s judgment was warped by party considerations. Such obliquities as are discernible in the biographical details in his history are clearly traceable to personal rather than party enmities. It is manifest that he had an intense admiration for Themistocles’ intellectual capacity; and it was fortunate for after-times that the second great historian of the fifth century was led by circumstances to draw the picture of the character of perhaps the most able man which the century produced—a picture which, in the hands of the first historian, had never got beyond the stage of mere preliminary sketches, not artistically connected, never completed, and never perhaps intended to be so. It is really the written judgment of Thucydides which has enabled posterity to understand the influence of Themistocles at this most critical period of Greek history, when the land was faced by circumstances of a magnitude far outstripping the narrow bounds of Greek experience. When the knowledge of experience cannot compass the situation, the intuition of genius is the only possible means by which the situation may be successfully met. And, if Thucydides is to be believed, it was this special and most rare quality which Themistocles possessed in such a remarkable degree. ◆T. i. 138.◆ “Themistocles was a man who displayed genius in the most unmistakable way, and in this respect calls for admiration in a special and unparalleled manner. For by his native intellectual power, unaided by study or by the teaching of experience, he was capable of giving the ablest opinion in emergencies only admitting of the briefest consideration, and was skilled in forming a judgment upon coming events even to the most distant future. Whatever came within the range of his practice, he could explain; and he did not fail to form an adequate judgment on that which lay beyond his experience. He possessed a peculiar power of foresight into the good and evil of the uncertain future. Speaking generally, by the very power of his genius, in spite of the slightness of his application, he was unsurpassed in devising intuitively what was required in an emergency.” * * * * * _Note on Translation of T._ i. 138, 3, καὶ οὔτε προμαθών ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν οὐτ ἐπιμαθών.