Themistocles urged the citizens to build the fortifications as quickly as possible, then went to Sparta as an ambassador to answer the charges levelled by the Spartans.

Plutarch provides the most evocative version of this story: But when Egypt revolted with Athenian aid ... and Cimon's mastery of the sea forced the King to resist the efforts of the Hellenes and to hinder their hostile growth ... messages came down to Themistocles saying that the King commanded him to make good his promises by applying himself to the Hellenic problem ; then, neither embittered by anything like anger against his former fellow-citizens, nor lifted up by the great honor and power he was to have in the war, but possibly thinking his task not even approachable, both because Hellas had other great generals at the time, and especially because Cimon was so marvelously successful in his campaigns ; yet most of all out of regard for the reputation of his own achievements and the trophies of those early days ; having decided that his best course was to put a fitting end to his life, he made a sacrifice to the gods, then called his friends together, gave them a farewell clasp of his hand, and, as the current story goes, drank bull's blood, or as some say, took a quick poison, and so died in Magnesia, in the sixty-fifth year of his life ... They say that the King, on learning the cause and the manner of his death, admired the man yet more, and continued to treat his friends and kindred with kindness.

In the same account, Themistocles is said to have rejected an attempt by the poet to bribe him, then likened himself as an honest magistrate to a good poet, since an honest magistrate keeps the laws and a good poet keeps in tune.

Themistocles thus fled from Greece, and travelled to Asia Minor, where he entered the service of the Persian king Artaxerxes I.

Perhaps realising he had little hope of surviving this trial, Themistocles fled, first to Kerkyra, and thence to Admetus, king of Molossia.

From Molossia, Themistocles apparently fled to Pydna, from where he took a ship for Asia Minor.

Around the same time, due to encouragement from influential speaker Themistocles, the Athenians also constructed the Long Walls connecting their city to the Piraeus, its port, making it effectively invulnerable to attack by land.

Themistocles can still reasonably be thought of as " the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Greece " from the Persian threat, as Plutarch describes him.

It is clear from Herodotus, however, that Themistocles would be the real leader of the fleet.

At this point Themistocles accepted a large bribe from the local people for the fleet to remain at Artemisium, and used some of it to bribe Eurybiades to remain, whilst pocketing the rest.

Aristides had been recalled from exile along with the other ostracised Athenians on the order of Themistocles, so that Athens might be united against the Persians.

Themistocles died at Magnesia in 459 BC, at the age of 65, according to Thucydides, from natural causes.

Both Herodotus and Plato record variations of an anecdote in which Themistocles responded with subtle sarcasm to an undistinguished man who complained that the great politician owed his fame merely to the fact that he came from Athens.

:" Timodemus of Aphidnae, who was one of Themistocles ' enemies but not a man of note, was crazed with envy and spoke bitterly to Themistocles of his visit to Lacedaemon, saying that the honors he had from the Lacedaemonians were paid him for Athens ' sake and not for his own.

As Plato tells it, the heckler hails from the small island of Seriphus ; Themistocles retorts that it is true that he would not have been famous if he had come from that small island, but that the heckler would not have been famous either if he had been born in Athens.

Themistocles was evidently sociable and appears to have enjoyed strong personal loyalty from his friends.

* In the film Lawrence of Arabia ( 1962 ) T. E. Lawrence, played by actor Peter O ' Toole, quotes Themistocles saying, " I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city.

It is based primarily upon the Life of Themistocles and Life of Aristides from Plutarch.

The Allied fleet now sailed from Artemisium to Salamis to assist with the final evacuation of Athens ; en route Themistocles left inscriptions addressed to the Ionian Greek crews of the Persian fleet on all springs of water that they might stop at, asking them to defect to the Allied cause.

* The Athenian soldier and statesman, Aristides, as well as the former Athenian archon Xanthippus, return from banishment in Aegina to serve under Themistocles against the Persians.

The origins of this sport is claimed to be derived from the Athenians when Themistocles, marching his army against the Persians, chanced upon two cocks fighting and charged his army saying “ Behold, these do not fight for their household gods, for the monuments of their ancestors, for glory, for liberty or the safety of their children, but only because one will not give way to the other .” Inspired, his army defeated the Persians and after ordained by law, cockfighting was annually practiced as " an institution partly religious and partly political at Athens, and continued there for the purpose of improving the seeds of valour in the minds of the Athenian youth ".

Artaxerxes I offered asylum to Themistocles, who was the winner of the Battle of Salamis, after Themistocles was ostracized from Athens and Artaxerxes I gave him Magnesia, Myus and Lampsacus to maintain him in bread, meat and wine, Palaescepsis to provide him with clothes and he gave him Percote with bedding for his house.

* Themistocles, after being exiled from Athens, makes his way across the Aegean to Magnesia, an inland Ionian city under Persian rule.

Spiral design altar block from the Tarxien Temples of Malta, uncovered by Themistocles Zammit | Sir Themistocles Zammit

The Spartans sent ambassadors to Admetus, threatening that the whole of Greece would go to war with the Molossians unless they surrendered Themistocles.

Themistocles died with his reputation in tatters, a traitor to the Athenian people ; the " saviour of Greece " had turned into the enemy of liberty.

* The Spartan co-ruler Leotychides and the Athenian leader Themistocles lead a fleet and army to reoccupy northern Greece and to punish the aristocratic family of the Aleuads for having aided the Persians.

After the second Persian invasion of Greece, Themistocles fortified the three harbours of Piraeus and created the neosoikoi ( ship houses ); the Themistoclean Walls were completed in 471 BC, turning Piraeus into a great military and commercial harbour.

Even if this did not work, Themistocles apparently intended that Xerxes would at least begin to suspect the Ionians, thereby sowing dissension in the Persian ranks.

Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, for whom Simonides apparently composed a mock epitaph that touches on the issue of the Rhodian's medism — an issue that also involved Themistocles.

Touring the taverns, the markets, the docks, canvassing where no politician had thought to canvas before, making sure never to forget a single voter's name, Themistocles had set his eyes on a radical new constituency " However, he took care to ensure that he did not alienate the nobility of Athens.

* Themistocles: The visionary leader of Athens during the Persian wars, he is mentioned as a role-model for suicide ( line 84 ), as a laughable benchmark for Cleon's own greatness ( 812-19 ) and as somebody who never gave Demos a cloak ( 884 ).

However, this episode may be seen as the beginning of the Spartan mistrust of Themistocles which would return to haunt him.

However, in an early example of his cunning, Themistocles persuaded " well-born " children to exercise with him in Cynosarges, thus breaking down the distinction between " alien and legitimate ".

In the run up to the Persian invasion, Themistocles had thus become the foremost politician in Athens.

Themistocles appears to have been aiming to fight a battle which would cripple the Persian navy, and thus guarantee the security of the Peloponnesus.

By delaying in this manner, Themistocles gave the Athenians enough time to fortify the city, and thus ward off any Spartan attack aimed at preventing the re-fortification of Athens.

" Themistocles advised the king on his dealings with the Greeks, though it seems that for a long period, the king was distracted by events elsewhere in the empire, and thus Themistocles " lived on for a long time without concern ".

After the battle of Marathon, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to devote the anticipated revenue derived from a major silver vein strike in the mines of Laurion circa 483 BC to expanding the Athenian fleet to 200 triremes, and thus laid the foundation of the Athenian naval power.

In the run up to the Persian invasion, Themistocles had thus become the leading politician in Athens.

The fleet was effectively under the command of Themistocles, but nominally led by the Spartan nobleman Eurybiades, as had been agreed at the congress in 481 BC.