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Themistocles (c.524-460) was a great Athenian naval leader who played
a vital role in the defeat of Xerxes I's invasion of Greece
in 480, but who like so many Athenian leaders ended his life in exile (Greco-Persian
Wars). Themistocles was the son of Neocles, a member of the aristocratic
Lycomid family, and a non-Athenian concubine. Before 508 he wouldn't have
qualified as an Athenian citizen, but in that year
Cleisthenes passed a
law making all free men in Athens into citizens. He entered the historical
record in 493 when he was elected as Archon, the chief judicial and civilian
position in Athens. During his time as Archon he began to move Athen's harbour
from the indefensible beaches at Phaleron to the more easily defended Piraeus.
This would later prove to be of great value to Athens, especially after the
city was linked to the port by the Long Walls.
In 490 the Athenian army defeated the Persians at
Marathon. This
greatly increased the prestige of the army, but Themistocles believed that
Athens needed a powerful fleet if she was to be truly safe from attack. His
first attempts to get the size of the fleet increased from 70 triremes failed,
but he did at least manage to survive the period of political turmoil after
Marathon that saw Miltiades, the commanding general in the battle, die in
disgrace in 489 and the period of ostracisms of 487-483. In 483 he had another
chance to increase the fleet, when a rich seam of silver was found at Laurium
near Sunium. He was able to convince the Athenian Assembly not to divide the
profits between the citizens, but instead to increase the size of the fleet up
to 200 triremes. In 480 the Persian king Xerxes I began his massive invasion of
Greece. Fortunately the Persians moved very slowly, allowing the Greeks to
organise their resistance. Themistocles was able to win the Spartans over to a
policy of forward defence, partly by agreeing to put the Athenian ships under
Spartan command. The Greek forces then moved north, looking for a suitable
defensive position. They eventually settled on
Thermopylae for the
army, while the fleet took up a position nearby at
Artemisium off the north
coast of the island of Euboea. The resulting battle
of Artemisium
saw the Greeks defeat a Persian attempt to outflank them. On the following
night the Persian outflanking force was destroyed in a storm. When battle was
renewed both sides suffered losses, but the key fighting came at
Thermopylae,
where after three days the Persians were eventually able to get past the Greek
blockade. The Greek fleet had to withdraw before it was cut off, and pulled
back around Attica to the island of Salamis, west of Athens. As the Persians
marched on Athens, the Athenians evacuated the city, and so when it fell to the
Persians it was unoccupied. The Persians sacked the city, but this didn’t
get them any nearer to victory. Themistocles was aware that the Persian ships
were lighter and more manoeuvrable than the triremes, and also more numerous.
He realised that the best hope of victory was to fight the Persians in the
narrow straits between Salamis and the mainland, where the heavier Greek ships
and armoured soldiers would have the advantage. His biggest problem was that
many of his fellow Greeks wanted to pull back further, perhaps to Argos. In
order to trigger a battle before this could happen Themistocles sent a message
to Xerxes suggesting that he was interested in changing sides and that the
Greek fleet might be about to retreat. Xerxes was tricked into ordered a
full-scale attack on the Greek position, and in the resulting battle of
Salamis lost a
key part of his fleet. With control of the sea lost, Xerxes realised that his
army was now dangerously exposed and decided to retreat north. He left a force
in Thessaly under his brother-in-law Mardonius, and then returned to his court.
Although Themistocles had played a crucial part in the victory at Salamis, he
still wasn't in favour with the Areopagus, the council of nobles that
controlled the war effort, and he wasn't given a command in 479. He did manage
to get the demolished walls of Athens rebuilt, despite Spartan opposition, but
his other political efforts all failed. Soon afterwards he was ostracized and
forced into exile in Argos. He was then forced to flee from there after the
Spartans accused him of being involved with Pausanias in a plot with the
Persians. With Athens and the Peloponnese now closed to him, Themistocles fled
to Persia, where he was welcomed by Xerxes's son and heir
Artaxerxes I and
appointed as governor of some of the Greek cities still ruled by the Persians.
Themistocles's reputation suffered after the war, probably because he was a
prominent support of the democracy while the historian Herodotus and the
philosopher Plato, both of whom wrote on him, were aristocrats and supporters
of a more aristocratic form of government. Away from Athens his role in the
Greek victory was more fully appreciated, and he was given a formal ovation in
Sparta.
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