When was themistocles ostracised

Such was earlier the Spartan fear of what they later had to accept. But the man who originated the idea of freeing helots had been Pausanias. He may have dreamed of the total overthrow of the Spartan system, a freak of the Agiad line. He may, on the other hand, have intended much less, viz. Is it inconceivable that so much was made by his opponents of so little, that Pausanias was a sensible man, not a monster?

He talks as if the helots were an organized, if clandestine, trade union, which from all we know they certainly were not. The only hypothesis which I wish to press here is that it was the news of the Persian decision to renew the struggle which set the scene both for the exiling of Themistocles and for the ruin of Pausanias, whether for his hopes or merely for Spartan fears. One question remains. Why was it believed that Pausanias might have communicated to Themistocles treasonable plans?

If the burden of the first part of this chapter is correct, their policies had much in common. So he is the Spartan counterpart of Themistocles. But their policies should have made them opponents. How could they be thought to be in league? Of course, the events of and may have made them not only partners but friends.

Presumably they had encountered each other at the meetings at the Isthmus, even if they do not meet in the pages of Herodotus. But one would expect there to be more to it than that.

By Sparta had turned against Themistocles Plut. The friendships of , like its signal honours Hdt. Why were they thought in the late s to be likely to be in communication? Perhaps the right answer, lame though it may appear, is simply that both had lacked zeal for the war against Persia, both were in eclipse in their own states, the one ostracized, the other discredited, and there was one remedy that both could share, or both be made to share, if the Persians ever came again.

So the two great leaders of the Persian Wars fell, under the coming shadow of the Eurymedon campaign, but their accusers will always be less successful with posterity than they were with their contemporaries. For his introduction of other notable Athenians of the period, cf. Meyer, Forschungen 2, p. Lenardon, Historia 5, , pp. Probably Herodotus meant that the family of Themistocles had been obscure. Bischoff, Der Warner bei Herodot Marburg, , pp. What is remarkable about the advice of Mnesiphilus on whom Themistocles was said to have modeled himself—Plut.

Macan ad loc. Andrewes, Phoenix 6, , p. At any rate, Plutarch, who had Stesimbrotus to guide him, accepted the same version Them.

There probably was such a synedrion, to judge by the case of Timocreon Plut. The only suspect element in the Diodorus version is his account of an earlier trial in which Themistocles was acquitted Diod. So there is nothing in Plutarch to support Diodorus, and, while it is probable enough that Themistocles was on trial before his ostracism, the charge of medism seems unlikely. Meyer, G. Hignett, Hist.

XIX , pp. But what is notable is that, having conceived the war of East and West as having its origins in the remotest past cp.

His viewpoint is thus in large measure Athenian isolationist. What does matter is whether the notice about the Hetoimaridas debate xi 50 is separated from the narrative of Hellenic affairs of in ch. No such matter does so intervene; there are only Sicelica and chronographic notices in chs. White, JHS 84, , p. This argument is not cogent. On the other hand, there is plenty of time biologically speaking. Pausanias could have sired his youngest son the day before he made his fatal visit to meet the Argilian man and his eldest in Suidas s.

Forrest, C. Of course Themistocles may well have been said to have been in Cyme during the interval between his arrival in Asia and the accession of Artaxerxes. Gomme, Historical Commentary on Thucydides , vol. But such a departure from custom suggests that the board of generals were especially popular at that moment, and some success which had involved them all which would not presumably have been the case with the capture of Scyrus or the siege of Naxos seems to be required.

This is just one more matter in which the discovery of a full Craterus cf. F 11 would silence debate: the sources of Cicero were less constricted than ours.

That Dem. The three years for the war against Egypt of Isoc. For the lengthy preparations of the invasion of , cf. Levi, Parola del Passato 7, , p. No great literary skill was needed to compose in Greek a letter from Xerxes.

The formulae were not unfamiliar. Disbelief in the authenticity of the letter is widespread. Lippold, Rh. Fornara, Historia 15, , pp.

Gomme, ad i But it seems more likely that Thucydides and Herodotus are reporting varying versions of the same affair, Thucydides accepting where Herodotus doubted pace H. Schaefer, PW According to Gomme ad loc. However, Nepos Paus. But, as J. Wolski, Eos 49, , pp. Pace Lippold, Rh. One may add that, if Pausanias had been so long in Byzantium, he would in all likelihood have used its strategic position to some purpose, and there is nothing to suggest that he did.

Either Justin was misled or the text is corrupt. But what, on this hypothesis, was he doing between and then? There is no reason for placing it in Willetts, C. Gomme is not, however, convincing in arguing ad i All Rights Reserved. Subscriber: null; date: 12 November OSO version 0. University Press Scholarship Online. Sign in. Not registered? Sign up. Publications Pages Publications Pages. Recently viewed 0 Save Search. Find in Worldcat. Go to page:. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Search within book. While some instances clearly expressed widespread anger at the citizen, ostracism was also often used preemptively. It was used to neutralize someone thought to be a threat to the state or a potential tyrant. The name is derived from the ostraca or ostraka , referring to the pottery shards used as voting tokens. Broken pottery was abundant and almost free. The pottery shards served as a kind of scrap paper.

Papyrus, which was imported from Egypt as a high-quality writing surface, was too expensive to be disposable. Themistocles — BC was an Athenian politician and general. He was a non-aristocratic politician who was a populist, having the support of lower-class Athenians and was generally at odds with the Athenian nobility. After Marathon, he advocated for a strong Athenian navy, and in BC, he persuaded the Athenians to build a fleet of triremes, which proved crucial in the conflict with Persia.

How did Athenian democracy keep one person from gaining too much power? Greek democracy created at Athens was direct, rather than representative: any adult male citizen over the age of 20 could take part, and it was a duty to do so.

The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition.

Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century B. The Greek idea of democracy was different from present-day democracy because, in Athens, all adult citizens were required to take an active part in the government.

When a new law was proposed, all the citizens of Athens had the opportunity to vote on it. Athens is often regarded as the birthplace of democracy and remains an important reference-point for democracy.

Their mountainous, rocky land was not good for farming, so the ancient Greeks became excellent sailors who traveled to distant lands. This is why Greece is often known as the Cradle of Western Civilization. The Greeks made important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.

The Greeks were known for their sophisticated sculpture and architecture. Greek culture influenced the Roman Empire and many other civilizations, and it continues to influence modern cultures today. The tale of the ancient Greek civilization is a painful history of foreign supremacy.

Ancient Greek Civilization. One of the most brilliant civilizations in world history, that of the ancient Greeks laid many of the foundations for the whole of Western civilization. It produced radical innovations in a wide range of fields — philosophy, science, art, architecture, government and politics, and more. Ancient Greece is remembered for developing democracy, inventing Western philosophy, realistic art, developing theater like comedy and tragedy, the Olympic Games, inventing pi, and the Pythagoras theorem.

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