Themistocles: An Athenian Leader with Issues

The ancient Athenian general and politician Themistocles does not receive as much credit as he deserves, although that is perhaps partly his own fault. He was born in the late sixth century BC at a time when his native city was undergoing rapid change. He was born when Athens was governed by an aristocratic tyrant, but in his teenage years the Athenians (with the help of the Spartans) rose up against their tyrants and banished them from the city. He was around 20 years old when the politician Cleisthenes—in a bid to gain more power than his political rivals—pushed through a series of reforms that weakened the power of the aristocracy and built-up Athens’ democratic government. In other words, Themistocles was entering manhood (and political life) at the dawn of democratic Athens.

A Roman copy of a bust of Themistocles

So far as we can tell, Themistocles came from an obscure family. His father was Athenian, but his mother was said to be Thracian or Carian. That his mother was not born an Athenian was not an issue—many aristocratic Athenians married women from elite, non-Athenian families in order to secure large dowries. It was less common for average Athenians to marry foreigners, and the fact that his mother was not even Greek may suggest that she held a lower status in the eyes of the Athenians. Still, citizenship in Athens at that time derived from one’s father, so Themistocles’ citizenship was never in doubt.

While he did not have the aristocratic family, wealth, and connections that had fueled political careers in the past, the new democratic government in Athens created possibilities for men with other attributes. Themistocles appears to have been very charismatic and was a good communicator, and he knew how to promote himself. He fought at the Battle of Marathon, when the Athenians and their Plataean allies repelled the first Persian invasion of Greece in 490 BC, and around that time he embraced the idea that Athens should build up its navy to become a naval power. This was a novel idea. The Greeks did not maintain true navies on those days, since their values gave pride of place to infantry battles, in particular to the massed formations of heavy infantry called phalanxes. Infantry armies were comparatively cheap because citizens provided their own armor and weapons, and usually their own food. Navies, on the other hand, were very expensive: there was not only the cost of the ship, but the oars, sails, ropes, and other gear had to be regularly maintained and replaced. Also, being a rower in an ancient warship was far from glamorous—it was hard and unappealing work, and it did not confer the same prestige as donning one’s armor to fight in an infantry battle. So Greeks far preferred fighting on foot in a phalanx if they could afford to supply themselves with the armor and weapons.

This raises the question of why Themistocles pushed so hard for Athens to become a naval power. It is possible that his experience at Marathon convinced him that the Persians would invade Greece again by sea, and that a navy would be necessary to fight them. He may also have had an economic motive: he told his fellow citizens that with a fleet they could conquer the large, rich, and commercially powerful island of Aegina, which lay just off the coast of Athens and controlled much of the trade in the Saronic Gulf. But he may also have had another motive: since most Athenians with the extra cash would have preferred to fight in the army, any navy was likely to be manned by poorer Athenians, who could not afford to serve in the army. So pushing the development of an Athenian navy meant empowering the citizens from lower economic classes, who had the right to vote in the assembly, but who enjoyed few other opportunities to exercise political power. Throughout history, states have understood that those who served in the military have the power to demand certain rights from their leaders: those who fight for the state have power in that state. So if Athens developed a navy in which poorer citizens served as rowers, that would give new political power to the lower classes of Athenians. It is possible, therefore, that Themistocles saw a new opportunity with the rise of democracy in Athens: he planned to use his charisma and affability to win the support of the poorer citizens, and then empower those voters by giving them a vital new role in the state’s military forces. So by winning the political support of the poorer citizens and empowering them through the creation of a navy, he could create for himself a powerful new voting bloc of political support. So he may have been one of the first Greek politicians to think about new ways to mobilize poor citizens in a democracy. We cannot know if this was his idea, but one is reminded of Jane Austen’s aristocratic character Sir Walter Elliot in her novel Persuasion, who explains his dislike the navy by explaining that it brings “persons of obscure birth into undue distinction…raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of.” The aristocratic Sir Elliot did not like how navies raised the status of lower-class men, and Themistocles may have had something similar in mind for himself.

For many years he was stymied by the tremendous cost of building and equipping a navy, a high price that the Athenians were not willing to bear. First, he appears to have been instrumental in convincing the Athenians to develop a new port. They had been using beach called Phalerum not far from the city, but when Themistocles held the high magistracy of the eponymous archonship in 493 BC, he had the Athenians start building and fortifying a new port city at Piraeus, which would become the heart of Athens’ future naval empire and remains a hub of Greek shipping today. A decade later in 483 BC, another opportunity struck: miners digging in the Laurion region of Attica (Athenian territory) struck an unusually large vein of silver, providing a huge windfall for the Athenians. Instead of dividing it among themselves, Themistocles convinced the citizens to use the funds to build a fleet of warships, which they did. In was a very lucky thing, because the new fleet was completed just in time for the second Persian invasion of Greece, which started in 480 BC.

While the Spartans who died at Thermopylae tend to get all the glory in the Persian Wars, people often forget that they were only one part of the original Greek strategy to keep the Persians out of central Greece: the Spartans were to block the invasion of the Persian army at Thermopylae, while a fleet of allied Greek warships was to block the progress of the Persian navy by making a stand in the straits at Artemisium. The Spartan Eurybiades was in overall command of the fleet, but the Spartans had little interest in (or respect for) navies, and he seems to have decided to withdrawn the fleet almost as soon as he was sent. The Greek cities in the area—who would be helpless if abandoned by the Greek fleet—offered Themistocles a huge bribe if he could convince Eurybiades to stay. He agreed and managed to persuade the Spartan with only a portion of the total amount, so Themistocles was able to keep much of the bribe money for himself. He seems to have had a reputation for enjoying a good bribe.

The Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae were ultimately overrun and killed, but the Greek fleet at Artemisium was successful and kept the Persians at bay. While this was a great success, the loss at Thermopylae meant the land route into central Greece was open, so there was no point to continuing to defend at Artemisium. As the fleet withdrew, however, Themistocles left notes written in Greek at every source of fresh water where the Persian fleet was likely to stop for supplies. The Persian Empire at that time had conquered and incorporated many Greek cities in Asia Minor, and so there were many Greeks serving (perhaps forcibly) in the Persian fleet. In his messages, Themistocles asked those Greeks to abandon the Persian fleet or at least fight badly for the Persians. He was not sure if the Greeks in the Persian fleet would do this, but he thought his messages would at least make the Persian King Xerxes suspicious of those Greeks serving in his fleet. Whether this had repercussions for the Greek sailors in the Persian fleet is unknown.

Leaving Artemisium, the Greek fleet sailed to the island of Salamis off the coast of Attica. The Athenians had time to evacuate their city before the Persian army arrived and sacked it, leaving the captains of the Greek fleet uncertain of how to proceed. Most wanted to pull back to southern Greece and coordinate with the Spartan army, but Themistocles wanted to fight the battle there, in the shallow waters of Salamis. Since his allies disagreed with him, he decided to trick both the Greek captains and Xerxes. He sent a secret messenger to the Persian king telling him that the Greek fleet was preparing to flee from Salamis, and that—if he wanted to destroy it—he should divide his fleet to come around both sides of the island, thereby trapping the Greek fleet in the shallows between the island and the mainland before it could withdraw to southern Greece (see map below). Themistocles hoped that this “divide and conquer” tactic would give the Greeks an advantage and enable them to win, but just in case they lost, he made sure to tell Xerxes that he was the one sending the secret message. That way, if the Greeks lost, he would have been able to claim credit for the Persian victory and seek a reward from Xerxes.

As things happened, the Greek captains won the day with their expert knowledge of the local waters, rocky coasts, and shoals. With the Persian fleet divided, the Greeks first destroyed one half of the enemy ships, trapping them in the shallow waters, and then they turned to destroy the other half. It was a complete victory for the Greeks, and a disaster for the Persians: they had built a floating pontoon bridge across the Hellespont to march their army from the Asian continent to the European one, but once the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet and had mastery of the sea, they could sail up to the Hellespont and destroy the bridge, trapping the Persian force (and its king) in Europe. Xerxes realized the potential danger if the Greeks destroyed that bridge, so he took much of his army and returned to Persia, leaving a sizeable army under a lieutenant to “mop up” the Greeks in the following year. He may have hoped for victory, but that army was destroyed—primarily by the Spartans—in the Battle of Plataea the following spring (479 BC). The Spartan performance at Plataea was magnificent, but there is no escaping the fact that the Battle of Salamis was the turning point. Without that victory, the Spartans would have faced an overwhelming force at Plataea, and history may have been very different.

Themistocles was widely celebrated as a great hero for his leadership in the war, but it is clear that he had also annoyed—and perhaps angered—many of his allies. He was a gifted strategist, but his double-dealings may have been known, and his persistent self-promotion seems to have alienated many. When the Greek captains voted to see which of them deserved the prize of honor for leadership in the war, they all voted for themselves first and Themistocles second, meaning no one won the award.

Themistocles had a few more tricks up his sleeve. After the victory, he tried to persuade the Athenians to follow another of his plans. He assured his fellow citizens that the plan would be a great advantage to them, but that it was so secret that he could not announce it publicly. He proposed to tell it to his political rival, Aristides, who could then advise the Athenians. The plan was to take advantage of the good feelings in Greece to launch a surprise attack against Athens’ own allies and burn their ships. Themistocles judged that the opportunity was ripe for a sneak attack against his allies, which would leave Athens as the only naval power in Greece. Aristides heard this and told the Athenian assembly that Themistocles’ plan would indeed do a great benefit for Athens, but that it was also the most unjust thing Athens could do. So the Athenians voted against the idea.

The city of Athens had been sacked by the Persians during the war, and as its citizens began the rebuilding process, the Spartans urged that they should not build a wall against their city, since—if the Persians returned—they might capture Athens and use its walls for their own defense. If no Greek cities had walls, the Spartan army could march into them at any time, for good or ill. Themistocles again had a plan: he told the Athenians to rebuilt their walls as quickly as possible, and in the meantime he would go to Sparta and keep the Spartans distracted—he would buy time for the Athenians to refortify their city. The plan worked. As word of the Athenian construction arrived in Sparta, Themistocles claimed the reports were false, accused the messengers of lying, and demanded that new messengers be sent, and so managed to delay Sparta’s reaction until it was too late. By the time the Spartans had a clear understanding of what was happening, the Athenians had built their wall up to a defensible height. The deed was done.

Part of the Wall of Themistocles, with mismatched stone sizes.

Themistocles’ reputation was at its height, but as often happened among the Greeks, that was the most dangerous time for a man. His fellow Athenians became jealous of his political power and his high status, but it also seems that he could not stop reminding them of his own glory and achievements. His arrogance and self-importance became deeply annoying. His behavior is perhaps understandable—the Greeks thrived on competition, and they had invented the Olympic Games as a regular method for allowing men to prove themselves to be the best at different sports. Claiming to be the best is the essence of aristocracy (aristos = “the best”), but Themistocles appears to have made his claims awkwardly, badly, too grandly, and too frequently. There is an old idea that aristocracy is a closed club: if you are not born into it, you can never truly belong to it, no matter how much you achieve or how hard you try. So Themistocles—a man born to an undistinguished family—may have fallen into excessive self-promotion through his persistent efforts and desire to gain the recognition that he deserved. It is impossible to recover his motives, but his fellow citizens—democrats and aristocrats alike—seem to have quickly tired of his boasting and his constant efforts to remind them of his own great deeds.

The Athenian democracy possessed a powerful tool for checking the political aspirations of overly ambitious men: ostracism. Each year, if the citizens chose to hold an ostracism, they would write the name of the man they wanted gone on a sherd of pottery (an ostraka in Greek), and whichever man gained the most votes was ostracized: he had to leave town for ten years, but did not lose his citizenship or property, and could return after ten years. It was simply a method for removing a troublesome man from the public sphere for a decade, but did not otherwise punish him or his family. So in or around 471 BC the Athenians ostracized Themistocles, forcing him to leave the city. The poorer citizens may have resented his self-promotion and boasting, while the rich may have resented his political power and saw him as too great a rival.

An ostraka with Themistocles’ name on it.

Themistocles appears to have gone first to Argos, but the Spartans still resented the way he had played them to allow the Athenians to rebuilt their walls. Worried about falling into Spartan hands, he traveled north and then east, ultimately arriving in Persia at the court of King Artaxerxes I, the son of the king Themistocles had defeated at Salamis. Artaxerxes did not hold a grudge, and indeed, he seems to have appreciated Themistocles. Persian kings had a reputation for receiving Greek leaders who were exiled from their homes, so Artaxerxes made Themistocles welcome, and ultimately made him the governor of the region of Magnesia in Asia Minor, giving him several citizens to tax for his upkeep. Thucydides says that Themistocles lived out the rest of his life in luxury in Magnesia and died of natural causes, although there was a tradition that he killed himself (by drinking bull’s blood!) when ordered by the Persian king to make war on Athens, preferring to die rather than attack his own people. That is probably a legend, but it reflects the complicated legacy of Themistocles, and portrays him as a man who loved his country despite living in exile.

There can be little doubt that Themistocles was one of the most important men in the history of ancient Athens—he greatly strengthened the democracy by making Athens a naval power, and his plan at the Battle of Salamis proved to be the critical turning point that won the war for the Greeks. On the other hand, there are many stories that suggest he was capable of double-dealing, and that his loyalty was to himself first, then to Athens. But this would not be so unusual for an ancient Greek aristocrat in those days—many migrated to different cities when it suited their interests, and self-interest was common. So he certainly deserves his place in the history books, even if there are a few issues with his legacy.