of Greece; a third council was held, and Themistocles felt that its decision would be against him, when, by a sudden happy thought, he contrived to have a secret message conveyed to the commanders of the Persian fleet through his slave, an Ionian Greek from Asia, a man of intelligence and education, and well acquainted with the Persian language. The communication came in the name of Themistocles, who professed that he wished well to the king, and that now was a good opportunity for attacking and crushing the Greeks, as they were divided among themselves and were bent on flight. The stratagem was successful, and the enemy's great armada advanced along the coast of Attica that same night, and took up a position which effectually confined the Greek fleet within the narrow[1] strait between Salamis and the southern shore of Attica. The Greek captains, not knowing the state of the case, were still wrangling through the night, when just before daybreak the banished Aristides came from Ægina with the news that the Persian fleet was close at hand and that retreat was impossible. "Let us still be rivals," he said to Themistocles, "but let our strife be which can best save our country."
The great victory of Salamis (see, vol. xi. p. 100) left Greece mistress of the sea, and was followed by the retreat of Xerxes. Themistocles, it is said, frightened the king back to Asia by another secret message, to the effect that the victorious Greeks were bent on following him up to the Hellespont and burning his bridge of boats, but that he was doing his best to check their ardour, though in reality he had himself advised immediate pursuit of the enemy. We cannot but admire the man's sagacity and far sightedness in thus laying the king under an obligation which he might some day turn to his own profit, though we cannot but feel that he had some of the worst as well as some of the most splendid characteristics of the Greek. After the victory Themistocles sailed with the Athenian squadron through the Ægean, and from some of the islanders who had sided with the enemy he exacted heavy fines, out of which, it appears, he filled his own purse. When the Greeks met at the isthmus to decide according to custom the prizes of merit for the glorious day of Salamis, he received only the second prize, the first being awarded to the Spartan admiral, but by way of compensation he was soon afterwards heartily welcomed at Sparta, and loaded with honours so extraordinary as to imply that even the Spartans themselves recognized him as the first man in Greece. It was not long, however, before he gave them deadly offence. After the victories of Platæa and Mycale in 479 the Athenians went back to their desolate city and began to rebuild and fortify it. Jealous fears of the growing power of Athens were awakened, and the Spartans, as representatives of the Greeks generally, formally protested against the fortification of a Greek city outside the Peloponnese, on the ground that some future Persian invader might make it a base of operations. Themistocles saw the dangers of Spartan opposition, and got the Athenians to commission him to arrange matters along with two other envoys, who, however, were purposely not allowed to arrive at Sparta at the same time as himself. He told the Spartan magistrates that before he could transact business with them he must wait for his colleagues; meanwhile Athens was being fortified, every man, woman, and child putting a hand to the work, and as soon as Themistocles understood that it was sufficiently advanced he declared openly that Athens would brook no sort of interference. The Spartans felt they had been tricked, but they could do nothing. And now Themistocles proceeded to fortify Piræus, and to enlarge the harbour, thus providing Athens with an excellent naval dockyard, and holding out an inducement to foreigners to settle in the city for the purposes of trade. Twenty war ships, too, were at his suggestion to be built every year, and nothing left undone to make Athens prosperous and powerful.
A few years afterwards (in 471 probably) we find his political career terminated by a vote of ostracism, due perhaps in part to Spartan influence at Athens, and also to an offensive boastfulness and ostentation which disgusted the sensitive Athenian democracy. He was even charged with corrupt practices and with receiving bribes from Persia. From Argos, whither he had retired as an exile, he was forced to flee by a threat of the Spartans, who alleged that they had proofs of his treasonable complicity in the schemes of their countryman Pausanias, and to take refuge in the island of Corcyra; but here again he was pursued by Spartan and Athenian commissioners, and driven to seek the protection of Admetus, king of the Molossians, the chief people of Epirus. In the court of this half-Greek half-barbarian prince he found a hospitable reception, and he was furnished with the means of crossing the Ægean to Ephesus. Shortly after his arrival in Asia, the son of Xerxes, Artaxerxes, succeeded to the throne of Persia, and to him Themistocles contrived to make himself known as a fugitive from ungrateful Greece, which he had saved, and now ready and willing to advise and assist the king in avenging his father's defeat. He was treated, it is said, with marked respect, and was liberally pensioned with the revenues of three wealthy towns—Magnesia, Myus, and Lampsacus. It was at the first of these, which was near the coast, and whence he might be supposed to have opportunities for watching the affairs of Greece, that he passed the last year of his life, dying a natural death at the age of 65. The year of his death is not accurately ascertainable; opinions vary between 460 and 447.
Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch are our chief original sources for the life of Themistocles. The subject is fully treated in the histories of Grote and Thirlwall. (W. J. B.)
THÉNARD, Louis Jacques (1777-1857), was born on the 4th of May 1777, at Louptiere, near Nogent-sur-Seine, in Champagne. His father, though a poor man, sent him to the academy of Sens, where he received a liberal education. At the age of sixteen he went to Paris to study pharmacy. He attended the lectures of Fourcroy and Vauquelin, and saw that the only way to learn chemistry was to work at it. Vauquelin, himself a poor man, ad mitted a few students to his laboratory on payment of a fee of 20 francs a month. But this fee was prohibitory to the peasant's son; the utmost that his father could send him just kept him alive in Paris. Thénard went to Vauquelin and asked to be allowed to do any menial work for him, if only he would let him assist in his laboratory. One of Vauquelin's sisters bad slipped into the room and heard part of the conversation; she said to her brother, "He is a good lad; you should keep him; he will help you in the laboratory, and look after our pot au feu; your dandy assistants always let it boil." Thénard was engaged on these terms. Long afterwards he said that he looked upon the chemistry of the pot au feu and the process of simmering as of very great importance: they had been the turning-point of his life. Thénard assisted Vauquelin in the laboratory and at his lectures, and, when by starving for a day or two he accumulated sous enough to pay for a seat in the gallery, used to go to the theatre to improve his pronunciation and rub off his rustic accent.
By and by Vauquelin gave him an opportunity of testing his powers as a lecturer. Having to go for some days to the country, he asked Thénard to take his place. For the first two or three lectures his attention was fixed on his work, and his eyes did not wander from the lecture table. On the fifth day he ventured to look round the room, when to his consternation he saw Fourcroy and
- ↑ Not more than a quarter of a mile wide in its narrowest part.
