Some say that Phthia, the
king's wife, suggested this posture to Themistokles, and placed her
infant on the hearth with him; while others say that Admetus, in order
to be able to allege religious reasons for his refusal to give up
Themistokles to his pursuers, himself arranged the scene with him. After
this, Epikrates, of the township of Acharnai, managed to convey his wife
and children out of Athens to join him, for which, we are told by
Stesimbrotus, Kimon subsequently had him condemned and executed. But,
singularly enough, afterwards Stesimbrotus either forgets his wife and
children, or makes Themistokles forget them, when he says that he sailed
to Sicily and demanded the daughter of the despot Hiero in marriage,
promising that he would make all Greece obey him. As Hiero rejected his
proposals, he then went to Asia.
XXV. Now it is not probable that this ever took place. Theophrastus, in
his treatise on monarchy, relates that when Hiero sent race-horses to
Olympia and pitched a costly tent there, Themistokles said to the
assembled Greeks that they ought to destroy the despot's tent, and not
permit his horses to run. Thucydides too informs us that he crossed to
the Aegean sea, and set sail from Pydna, none of his fellow-travellers
knowing who he was until the ship was driven by contrary winds to Naxos,
which was then being besieged by the Athenians. Then he became alarmed,
and told the captain and the pilot who he was, and, partly by
entreaties, partly by threats that he would denounce them to the
Athenians, and say that they well knew who he was, but were carrying him
out of the country for a bribe, he prevailed on them to hold on their
course to the coast of Asia.
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