Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/311

 GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE PERSIAN INVASION. 287 revenue Themistokles received altogether : but there can be no doubt, judging from the revenues of Magnesia alone, that he was a great pecuniary gainer by his change of country. After hav- ing visited various parts of Asia,i he lived for a certain time at Magnesia, in which place his family joined him from Athens. How long his residence at Magnesia lasted we do not know, but seemingly long enough to acquire local estimation and leave me- mentos behind him. He at length died of sickness, when sixty- five years old, Avithout having taken any step towards the accom- plishment of those victorious campaigns which he had promised to Artaxerxes. That sickness was the real cause of his death, we may believe on the distinct statement of Thucydides ;2 who at the same time notices a rumor partially current in his own time, specific : they stated that Perkote was granted to Themistokles for bedding, and Palseskepsis for clothing (Plutarch, Themist. c. 29 ; Athenoeus, i, p. 29). This seems to have been a frequent form of grants from the Persian and Egyptian kings, to their queens, relatives, or friends, — a grant nominally to supply some particular want or taste : see Dr. Arnold's note on the pas- sage of Thucydides. I doubt his statement, however, about the land-tax, or rent ; I do not think that it was a tenth or a fifth of the produce of the soil in these districts which was granted to Themistokles, but the portion of regal revenue, or tribute, levied in them. The Persian kings did not take the trouble to assess and collect the tribute : they probably left that to the inhabitants themselves, provided the sum total were duly paid. ' Plutarch, Themistokles, c. 31. TrXavufj-evo^ nepl ttjv ^Aaiav : this state- ment seems probable enough, though Plutarch rejects it. " Thucyd. i, 138. Noaiiaa^ 6k tsXevto. tov (3lov • 7<.EyovcsL 6e tlve^, koI EKOvaLov ^apfiuKcj uTTO'&avElv avrbv, advvaTov vo/iiaavTa elvat knLre'kiaaL ^aaiktl a vtveoxeto. This cun-ent story, as old as Aristophanes (Equit. 83, compare the Scho- lia), alleged that Themistokles had poisoned himself by drinking bull's blood (see Diodor. xi, 58), who assigns to this act of taking poison a still more sublime patriotic character by making it part of a design on the part of Themistokles to restrain the Persian king from warring against Greece. Plutarch (Themist. c. 31, and Kimon, c. 18) and Diodorus both state, as an unquestionable fact, that Themistokles died by poisoning himself: omit- ting even to notice the statement of Thucydides, that he died of disease. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 10) follows Thucydides. Cicero (Brutus, c. 11) refers the story of the suicide by poison to Clitarchus and Stratokles, recognizing it as contraiy to Thucydides. He puts into the mouth of his fellow dialogist, Atticus, a just rebuke of the facility with which historical trurti was sacriiiced to rhetorical purpose.