The translation I have adopted follows in its main lines that of Croiset in his edition of Thucydides, to which attention is called in M. Hauvette’s work on Herodotus. “Le génie naturel de Thémistocle ne devait rien ni à l’étude préalable ni à cette autre sorte d’étude qui sort de l’expérience, et surtout de l’expérience malheureuse.” Such is Thucydides’ description of the man, delivered more than sixty years after Salamis, when his cool judgment, unaffected by political controversy, which had in the interval wholly changed its ground, could sift without passion and without prejudice the evidence that he found in existence in his own time. Themistocles may have been dishonest; but Thucydides does not seem to have been satisfied that he was so; and, that being the case, the modern world may well have some doubts upon the subject. Apart from the charges of dishonesty, Herodotus shows a tendency to discount the merit of Themistocles in proposing the design which led to the great victory. A previous example of the same tendency has been noticed in the reference which the historian makes to the proposal to allot the surplus from the mines at Laurion to the construction of a fleet. It is there implied that Themistocles did not act with the foresight with which he was credited; that the proposal had reference to the war with Ægina, and not to any foreseen invasion from the side of Persia. It is easy now to see that Herodotus’ allegation is most certainly mistaken. The Persian design of revenging Marathon, conceived before the death of Darius in 485, cannot have been a secret; and the mere size of the fleet proposed renders it extremely unlikely that Athens would have assented to the expense it involved, merely for the purposes of an attack on a state which could only place one-fifth of the number of ships in commission. The allegation of Herodotus in the present instance is equally unconvincing. #THE TALE OF MNESIPHILOS.#