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Themistocles was born in Athens around 524 BC, the son of Neocles, who was, in the words of Plutarch " no very conspicuous man ".
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Themistocles and was
Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary.
Others, Themistocles among them, said the oracle was clearly for fighting at sea, the metaphor intended to mean war ships.
Themistocles ( Greek: ; " Glory of the Law "; c. 524 – 459 BC ), was an Athenian politician and a general.
As a politician, Themistocles was a populist, having the support of lower class Athenians, and generally being at odds with the Athenian nobility.
Due to subterfuge on the part of Themistocles, the Allies lured the Persian fleet into the Straits of Salamis, and the decisive Greek victory there was the turning point in the invasion, which was ended the following year by the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Plataea.
It was Thucydides's judgement that Themistocles was " a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius ; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled ".
Plutarch indicates that, on account of his mother's background, Themistocles was considered something of an outsider ; furthermore the family appear to have lived in an immigrant district of Athens, Cynosarges, outside the city walls.
Plutarch further reports that Themistocles was preoccupied, even as a child, with preparing for public life.
Themistocles had many daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, whom he had by a second marriage, was wife to Archeptolis, her brother by another mother, she became priestess of Cybele ; Italia was married to Panthoides, of the island of Chios ; Sybaris to Nicomedes the Athenian.
Themistocles was to prove himself a master of the new system ; " he could infight, he could network, he could spin ... and crucially, he knew how to make himself visible.
In advancing naval power, Themistocles was probably advocating a course of action he thought essential for the long-term prospects of Athens.
Themistocles avoided mentioning Persia, deeming that it was too distant a threat for the Athenians to act on, and instead focused their attention on Aegina.
Aristides refused to countenance this ; conversely Themistocles was not pleased that only 100 ships would be built.
A force of 10, 000 hoplites was dispatched to the Vale of Tempe, through which they believed the Persian army would have to pass, under the command of the Spartan polemarch Euenetus and Themistocles.
Themistocles sent a servant, Sicinnus, to Xerxes, with a message proclaiming that Themistocles was " on king's side and prefers that your affairs prevail, not the Hellenes ".
Themistocles claimed that the Allied commanders were infighting, that the Peloponnesians were planning to evacuate that very night, and that to gain victory all the Persians needed to do was to block the straits.
Since it was his long-standing advocacy of Athenian naval power which enabled the Allied fleet to fight at all, and it was his stratagem that brought about the Battle of Salamis, it is probably not an exaggeration to say, as Plutarch does, that Themistocles " is thought to have been the man most instrumental in achieving the salvation of Hellas ".
Themistocles and born
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 and Athens
This inference is supported by the date of the building of the 200 triremes for the war against Aegina on the advice of Themistocles, which is given in the Constitution of Athens as 483-482 BC.
Themistocles grew up in a period of upheaval in Athens.
The new system of government in Athens opened up a wealth of opportunity for men like Themistocles, who previously would have had no access to power.
" Themistocles moved to the Ceramicus, a down-market part of Athens.
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 probably turned 30 in 494 BC, which qualified him to become an archon, the highest magistracies in Athens.
Themistocles, with his power-base firmly established amongst the poor, moved naturally to fill the vacuum left by Miltiades's death, and in that decade became the most influential politician in Athens.
In the run up to the Persian invasion, Themistocles had thus become the foremost politician in Athens.
The Spartans claimed the command of land forces, and since the Greek ( hereafter referred to as " Allied ") fleet would be dominated by Athens, Themistocles tried to claim command of the naval forces.
" His proposals accepted, Themistocles issued orders for the women and children of Athens to be sent to the city of Troezen, safely inside the Peloponnesus.
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.
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 was probably aiming to make Athens the dominant naval power in the Aegean.
Themistocles introduced tax breaks for merchants and artisans, to attract both people and trade to the city, in order to make Athens a great mercantile centre.
Plutarch reports that Themistocles also proposed in secret to destroy the beached ships of the other Allied navies, in order to ensure complete naval dominance, but was overruled by Aristides and the council of Athens.
Plutarch indicates that he met in Athens a lineal descendant of Themistocles ( also called Themistocles ) who was still paid these revenues, 600 years after the events in question.
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.
This he kept saying until Themistocles replied, ' This is the truth of the matter: if I had been a man of Belbina I would not have been honored in this way by the Spartans, nor would you, sir, for all you are a man of Athens.
Themistocles and around
After Themistocles tricked Xerxes into separating his fleet by sending part around the island to blockade the Greek fleet in the Straits of Salamis, Eurybiades was forced to accept Salamis as the battlefield.
However he is remembered particularly for his bitter clashes with Themistocles and Simonides over the issue of his medizing ( siding with the Persian invaders ), for which he had been banished from his home around the time of the Greek victory at the Battle of Salamis.
Themistocles and BC
After winning at Eurymedon in 468 BC, Cimon and Themistocles ordered the reconstruction of its southern and northern walls, and Pericles entrusted the building of the Parthenon to Ictinus and Callicrates, under the general direction of Phidias.
From the handwriting they appear to have been written by fourteen individuals and bear the name of Themistocles, ostracised before 471 BC and were evidently meant for distribution to voters.
* 480 BC – Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.
Themistocles died in 459 BC, probably of natural causes.
Tension between the two camps built over the winter, so that the ostracism of 482 BC became a direct contest between Themistocles and Aristides.
It is probable that in early 479 BC, Themistocles was stripped of his command ; instead, Xanthippus was to command the Athenian fleet, and Aristides the land forces.
Though Themistocles was no doubt politically and militarily active for the rest of the campaign, no mention of his activities in 479 BC is made in the ancient sources.
Themistocles died at Magnesia in 459 BC, at the age of 65, according to Thucydides, from natural causes.
However, his reputation in Athens was rehabilitated by Pericles in the 450s BC, and by the time Herodotus wrote his history, Themistocles was once again seen as a hero.
In order to counter this, and possibly with an eye already at the mounting Persian preparations, in 483 / 2 BC the Athenian statesman Themistocles used his political skills and influence to persuade the Athenian assembly to start the construction of 200 triremes, using the income of the newly discovered silver mines at Laurion.
* 471 BC: Athenian politician Themistocles is ostracized.
The Athenians had also been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the Athenian politician Themistocles, to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be necessary for the Greeks to fight the Persians.
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.
* Themistocles, Athenian politician and naval strategist ( b. 525 BC )
Salamis island is known for the Battle of Salamis, the decisive naval victory of the allied Greek fleet, led by Themistocles, over the Persian Empire in 480 BC.
In 493 BC, Themistocles initiated the fortification works in Piraeus and later advised the Athenians to take advantage of its natural harbours ' strategic potential instead of using the sandy bay of Phaleron.
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.
The Athenian general Miltiades the Younger led the victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, and Themistocles was chiefly responsible for the victory at Salamis 10 years later.
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.
Aristides continued to oppose Themistocles's policy, and tension between the two camps built over the winter, so the ostracism of 482 BC became a direct contest between Themistocles and Aristides.
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