Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/308

 28^1 HISTORY OF GREECE. who controlled his crew, and forced them to beat about during a day and a night off the coast, without seeking to land. After that dangerous interval, the storm abated, and the ship reached Ephe- Bus in safety.' Thus did Themistokles, after a series of perils, find himself safe on the Persian side of the ^gean. At Athens, he was pro- claimed a traitor, and his property confiscated : nevertheless, as it frequently happened in cases of confiscation, his friends se- creted a considerable sum, and sent it over to him in Asia, together with the money which he had left at Argos ; so that he was thus enabled liberally to reward the ship-captain who had preserved him. With all this deduction, the property which he possessed of a character not susceptible of concealment, and which was therefore actually seized, was found to amount to eighty talents, according to Theophrastus, — to one hundred talents, according to Theopompus. In contrast with this large sum, it is melancholy to learn that he had begun his political career with a property not greater than three talents.^ The poverty of Aristeides at the end of his life presents an impressive contrast to the enrichment of his rival. The escape of Themistokles, and his adventures in Persia, appear to have formed a favorite theme for the fancy and exag- geration of authors a century afterwards : we have thus many anecdotes which contradict either directly or by implication the simple narrative of Thucydides. Thus we are told that at the moment when he was running away from the Greeks, the Per- sian king also had proclaimed a reward of two hundred talents for his head, and that some Greeks on the coast of Asia were watching to take him for this reward : that he was forced to conceal himself strictly near the coast, until means were found ^ Thiicyd. i, 137. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 8) for the most part fol- lows Thucydides, and professes to do so ; yet he is not very accurate, espec- ially about the relations between Themistokles and Admetus. Diodorus (xi, 56) seems to follow chiefly other guides: also to a great extent Plu- tarch (Themist. c. 24-26). There were evidently different accounts of his voyage, which represented him as reaching, not Ephesus, but the JEolic Kyme. Diodorus does not notice his voyage by sea. 2 Plutarch, Themist. c. 25 ; also Kritias ap. JElian. V. H. x, 17 : compare Herodot. viii, 12.