"
It is said that Timokreon was exiled from home for having dealings with
the Persians, and that Themistokles confirmed his sentence. When, then,
Themistokles was charged with intriguing with the Persians, Timokreon
wrote upon him,
"Timokreon is not the only Greek
That turned a traitor, Persian gold to seek;
I'm not the only fox without a tail,
But others put their honour up for sale."
XXII. As the Athenians, through his unpopularity, eagerly listened to
any story to his discredit, he was obliged to weary them by constantly
repeating the tale of his own exploits to them. In answer to those who
were angry with him, he would ask, "Are you weary of always receiving
benefits from the same hand?" He also vexed the people by building the
Temple of Artemis of Good Counsel, as he called her, hinting that he had
taken good counsel for the Greeks. This temple he placed close to his
own house in Melite, at the place where at the present day the public
executioner casts out the bodies of executed criminals, and the clothes
and ropes of men who have hanged themselves. Even in our own times a
small statue of Themistokles used to stand in the Temple of Artemis of
Good Counsel; and he seems to have been a hero not only in mind, but in
appearance. The Athenians made use of ostracism to banish him, in order
to reduce his extravagant pretensions, as they always were wont to do in
the case of men whom they thought over powerful and unfit for living in
the equality of a democracy.
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