"Young man," said Themistokles, "it has taken some
time, but we have at length both regained our right minds." He used to
say that the Athenians neither admired nor respected him, but used him
like a plane-tree under which they took shelter in storm, but which in
fair weather they lopped and stripped of its leaves. Once when a citizen
of Seriphos said to him that he owed his glory, not to himself but to
his city, he answered, "Very true; I should not have become a great man
if I had been a Seriphian, nor would you if you had been an Athenian."
When one of his fellow-generals, who thought that he had done the state
good service, was taking a haughty tone, and comparing his exploits with
those of Themistokles, he said, "The day after a feast, once upon a
time, boasted that it was better than the feast-day itself, because on
that day all men are full of anxiety and trouble, while upon the next
day every one enjoys what has been prepared at his leisure. But the
feast-day answered, 'Very true, only but for me you never would have
been at all.' So now," said he, "if I had not come first, where would
you all have been now?" His son, who was spoiled by his mother, and by
himself to please her, he said was the most powerful person in Greece;
for the Athenians ruled the Greeks, he ruled the Athenians, his wife
ruled him, and his son ruled his wife. Wishing to be singular in all
things, when he put up a plot of ground for sale, he ordered the crier
to announce that there were good neighbours next to it.
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