wrestling-ring dedicated to Hercules, without the gates (which was appointed for that purpose, because Hercules himself was not altogether of divine extraction, but partly spurious, as having a mortal for his mother) Themistocles found means to persuade some of the young noblemen to go to Cynosarges, and take their exercise with him. This was an ingenious contrivance to destroy the distinction between the illegitimate or aliens, and the legitimate, whose parents were both Athenians. It is plain, however, that he was related to the house of the Lycomedæ; for Simonides informs us, that when a chapel of that family in the ward of Phlya, where the mysteries of Ceres used to be celebrated, was burned down by the barbarians, Themistocles rebuilt it, and adorned it with pictures.

It appears that, when a boy, he was full of spirit and fire, quick of apprehension, naturally inclined to bold attempts, and likely to make a great statesman. His hours of leisure and vacation he spent, not like other boys in idleness and play, but in inventing and composing declamations, the subjects of which were either the impeachment or defence of some of his school-fellows: so that his master would often say, " Boy, you will be nothing common or indifferent; you will either be a "blessing, or a curse to the community." As for moral philosophy and the polite arts, he learned them but slowly, and with little satisfaction; but instructions in political knowledge, and the administration of public affairs, he received with an attention above his years, because they suited his

The Lycomeda (so named from Lycus, the son of Pandion) were a family in Athens who, according to Pausanias, had the care of the sacrifices offered to Ceres; and in that chapel, which Theseus rebuilt, initiations and other mysteries were celebrated. (i. 22., iv. 1.) The ward Phlya was in the tribe Cecropis.

genius. When therefore long afterward he was ridiculed in a party, where free scope was given to raillery, by persons who were considered as more accomplished, he was obliged to answer them with some asperity: ""Tis true I never learned how to "tune a harp, or handle a lute, but I know how to "raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness."

Stesimbrotus indeed informs us, that Themistocles studied natural philosophy, both under Anaxagoras and Melissus. But in this he errs against chronology. For when Pericles, who was much younger than Themistocles, besieged Samos, Melissus defended it; and Anaxagoras lived with Pericles. Those seem to deserve more attention, that represent Themistocles as a follower of Mnesiphilus the Phrearian; who was neither orator, nor natural philosopher, but a professor of what was then called wisdom, which consisted in a knowledge of the arts of government, and the practical part of political prudence. This was a sect formed upon the principles of Solon, and descending in succession from him; but when the science of government came to be mixed with forensic arts, and passed from action to mere words, its professors instead of sages were

5 Anaxagoras was born Ol. lxx. 1.; Themistocles won the battle of Salamis Ol. lxxv. 1.; and Melissus defended Samos against Pericles Ol. lxxxiv. 4. Themistocles therefore could neither study under Anaxagoras, who was only twenty years old when that general gained the battle of Salamis, nor yet under Melissus, who did not begin to flourish till 35 years after that battle. (L.) Others, however, say that Anaxagoras flourished at the period, above assigned for his birth; which would obviate Plutarch's objection, as far as he is concerned.*

The first sages were in reality great politicians, who gave rules and precepts for the government of communities. Thales was the first, who carried his speculations into physics.

7

During the space of about a hundred, or a hundred and twenty years..

called sophists. Themistocles, however, was conversant in public business, when he attended the lectures of Mnesiphilus.

In the first sallies of youth, he was irregular and unsteady; as he followed his own disposition, without any moral restraints. He lived in extremes, and those extremes were often of the worst kind. This he afterward admitted, and excused by observing that the wildest colts make the best horses, when they come to be properly broken and managed. The stories however, which some tell us, of his father's disinheriting him, and his mother's laying violent hands upon herself because she could not bear the thoughts of her son's infamy, seem to be quite fictitious. Others, on the contrary, say that his father, to dissuade him from accepting any public employment, showed him some old galleys that lay worn out and neglected on the sea-shore, just as the populace neglect their leaders, when they have no farther service for them.

Themistocles had an early and violent inclination for public business, and was so strongly smitten with the love of glory, and a desire of the

The Sophists were rather rhetoricians, than philosophers; skilled in words, but superficial in knowledge, as Diogenes Laertius informs us. Protagoras, who flourished about Ol. lxxxiv., a little before the birth of Plato, was the first who had the appellation of Sophist. (Vid. Plat. Protag., and Diog. Laert. ix. 52.) But Socrates, who was more conversant in morality than in politics, physics, or rhetoric, and who was desirous to improve the world' rather in practice than in theory, modestly took the name of Philosophos, i. e. 'a lover of wisdom,' and not that of Sophos, i, e. 'a wise man.'

* Idomeneus says, that one morning Themistocles harnessed four naked courtesans in a chariot, and made them draw him across the Ceramicus in the sight of all the people there assembled; and that, at a time when the Athenians were perfect strangers to debauchery, both in wine and women. But, if that vice was then so little known in Athens, how could there be found four prostitutes impudent enough to be so exposed?

He

highest station, that he involved himself in troublesome quarrels with persons of the first rank and influence in the state, particularly with Aristides the son of Lysimachus, by whom he was constantly opposed. Their enmity began early, but the cause (as Ariston, the philosopher, relates) was nothing more than their regard for Stesileus of Teos. After this, their disputes continued about public affairs; and were naturally augmented by the dissimilarity of their lives and manners. Aristides was of a mild temper, and of the utmost probity. managed the concerns of government with inflexible justice, not with a view to ingratiate himself with the people, or to promote his own reputation, but solely for the advantage and safety of the state. He was therefore necessarily obliged to oppose Themistocles, and to prevent his promotion, because he frequently urged the people to unwarrantable enterprises, and was ambitious of introducing great innovations. Themistocles indeed was so hurried away with the lust of glory, and so immoderately anxious to distinguish himself by some illustrious action, that though he was very young when the battle of Marathon was fought, and when the generalship of Miltiades was every where extolled; yet even then he was observed to keep much alone, to be very pensive, to watch whole nights, and not to attend the usual entertainments: and when he was asked the reason by his friends, who wondered at the change, he said, "The trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him "to sleep." While others imagined the defeat of the Persians at Marathon had put an end to the war, he considered it as the beginning of greater conflicts 10; and, for the benefit of Greece, he was

10 He did not question but Darius would at length perceive, that the only way to deal with the Greeks was to attack them vigorously by sea, where they could make the least opposition.

always preparing himself and the Athenians against them, because he foresaw them at a distance "1.

And, in the first place, whereas the Athenians had used to share the revenue of the silver mines of Laurium 12 among themselves, he alone had the courage to make a motion to the people, that instead of that division, they should build with the produce a number of galleys to be employed in the war against the Æginetæ, who then made a considerable figure in Greece, and by means of their numerous navy were masters of the sea 13. By seasonably stirring up the resentment and emulation of his countrymen against these islanders 1, he the more easily prevailed upon them to provide themselves with ships, than if he had displayed the terrors of Darius and the Persians, who were at a greater distance, and of whose coming they had but slight apprehensions. With this money a hundred galleys, of three banks of oars, were built, which afterward fought against Xerxes. From

"The two principal qualifications of a general are a quick and comprehensive view of what is to be done upon any present emergency, and a happy foresight of what is to come: both these quali fications Themistocles possessed. With respect to the latter, Thucydides gives him this elogium, επί πλείσον το γενησομενες apisos eixasns. (L.) How correctly true of the immortal Fox!*

12 A mountain in Attica, near Cape Sunium. These mines were exhausted in the time of Pausanias, i. 1,*

13 This island, from it's situation, was pronounced by Pericles "a speck in the eye of the Piræus." In the Persian war it furnished, next to Athens, the most considerable quota of vessels. (Pausan. ii. 29.)*

14 Plutarch in this place follows Herodotus, vii. 144. But Thucydides i. 14. expressly states, that Themistocles availed himself of both these arguments, the apprehensions which the Athenians entertained of the return of the Persians, and the war against the Ægineta. He could not indeed well neglect so powerful an argument as the former, since (according to Plato) accounts were daily brought of the formidable preparations of Darius; and, upon his death, it appeared that Xerxes inherited all his father's rancour against the Greeks.