Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
To return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course of
the inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians
accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians and required them to punish
him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians consented to do so.
But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence at
Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese. So they
sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the pursuit,
persons with instructions to take him wherever they found him. But
Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from Peloponnese
to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But the
Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him at the
cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed him over to
the continent opposite. Pursued by the officers who hung on the report
of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was compelled to stop at
the house of Admetus, the Molossian king, though they were not on
friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be indoors, but his wife, to
whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed him to take their child in
his arms and sit down by the hearth. Soon afterwards Admetus came in,
and Themistocles told him who he was, and begged him not to revenge on
Themistocles in exile any opposition which his requests might have
experienced from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low
for his revenge; retaliation was only honourable between equals.
Besides, his opposition to the king had only affected the success of a
request, not the safety of his person; if the king were to give him up
to the pursuers that he mentioned, and the fate which they intended for
him, he would just be consigning him to certain death.
The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was
sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of
supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long
afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but
sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander’s
dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a
merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was
carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading Naxos.
In his alarm—he was luckily unknown to the people in the vessel—he told
the master who he was and what he was flying for, and said that, if he
refused to save him, he would declare that he was taking him for a
bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no one leave the
ship until a favourable time for sailing should arise. If he complied
with his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense. The master acted
as he desired, and, after lying to for a day and a night out of reach
of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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