[[9]] From the translation in Greek History for Young Readers by Alice Zimmern.
[[10]] Aeschylus: The Persians, translated by A. S. Way.
CHAPTER X
THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
I. THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ATHENS
The Persian had been defeated, and Greece was free. The Athenians had suffered more than any other state, for they had been forced to leave their city to be occupied by the enemy, and twice it had been burnt to the ground. Now, however, they were free to return. The city was utterly destroyed, but a great hope for the future filled their hearts when they found that the sacred olive tree on the Acropolis, which had been burnt by the Persians, was not dead after all, but had sent up fresh green shoots. Athena had not deserted them.
Themistocles was now the acknowledged leader of Athens, and the hero of all Greece.
At the next Olympic Games, when he entered the course, the spectators took no further heed of those who were contesting for the prizes, but spent the whole day in looking at him, showing him to the strangers, admiring him, and applauding him by clapping their hands, and other expressions of joy, so that he himself, much gratified, confessed to his friends that he then reaped the fruit of all his labours for the Greeks.[[1]]
He was by nature a great lover of honours and glory, and he liked to appear superior to other people. After the battle of Salamis when numbers of the Persian dead were washed ashore, "he perceived bracelets and necklaces of gold about them, yet passed on, only showing them to a friend that followed him, saying, 'Take you these things, for you are not Themistocles.'"[[2]]