We
are told that Themistokles himself, after he became a great man and was
courted by many, was seated one day at a magnificent banquet, and said
to his children, "My sons, we should have been ruined if it had not been
for our ruin." Most writers agree that three cities, Magnesia,
Lampsakus, and Myous, were allotted to him for bread, wine, and meat. To
these Neanthes of Kyzikus and Phanias add two more, Perkote and
Palaiskepsis, which were to supply bedding and clothing respectively.
XXX. On one occasion, when he went down to the seaside on some business
connected with Greece, a Persian named Epixyes, Satrap of Upper Phrygia,
plotted his assassination. He had long kept some Pisidians who were to
kill him when he passed the night in the town of Leontokophalos, which
means 'Lion's Head.' It is said that the mother of the gods appeared to
him while he was sleeping at noon and said, "Themistokles, be late at
Lion's Head, lest you fall in with a lion. As a recompense for this
warning, I demand Mnesiptolema for my handmaid." Themistokles, disturbed
at this, after praying to the goddess, left the highway and made a
circuit by another road, avoiding that place; when it was night he
encamped in the open country. As one of the sumpter cattle that carried
his tent had fallen into a river, Themistokles's servants hung up the
rich hangings, which were dripping with wet, in order to dry them.
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