[560] Thucyd. i, 137. ἦλθε γὰρ αὐτῷ ὕστερον ἔκ τε Ἀθηνῶν παρὰ τῶν φίλων, καὶ ἐξ Ἄργους ἃ ὑπεξέκειτο, etc.
I follow Mr. Fynes Clinton, in considering the year 471 B. C. to be the date of the ostracism of Themistoklês. It may probably be so, nor is there any evidence positively to contradict it: but I think Mr. Clinton states it too confidently, as he admits that Diodorus includes, in the chapters which he devotes to one archon, events which must have happened in several different years (see Fast. Hellen. B. C. 471).
After the expedition under the command of Pausanias in 478 B. C., we have no one date at once certain and accurate, until we come to the death of Xerxes, where Diodorus is confirmed by the Canon of the Persian kings, B. C. 465. This last event determines by close approximation and inference, the flight of Themistoklês, the siege of Naxos, and the death of Pausanias: for the other events of this period, we are reduced to a more vague approximation, and can ascertain little beyond their order of succession.
[561] Thucyd. i, 135; Ephorus ap. Plutarch. de Malign. Herodoti, c. 5, p. 855; Diodor. xi, 54; Plutarch, Themist. c. 23.
[562] Diodor. xi, 55.
[563] Thucyd. i, 137. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 8) for the most part follows Thucydidês, and professes to do so; yet he is not very accurate, especially about the relations between Themistoklês and Admêtus. Diodorus (xi, 56) seems to follow chiefly other guides: also to a great extent Plutarch (Themist. c. 24-26). There were evidently different accounts of his voyage, which represented him as reaching, not Ephesus, but the Æolic Kymê. Diodorus does not notice his voyage by sea.
[564] Plutarch, Themist. c. 25; also Kritias ap. Ælian. V. H. x, 17: compare Herodot. viii, 12.
[565] Diodor. xi, 56; Plutarch, Themist. c. 24-30.
[566] “Proditionem ultrò imputabant (says Tacitus, Hist. ii, 60, respecting Paullinus and Proculus, the generals of the army of Otho, when they surrendered to Vitellius after the defeat at Bebriacum), spatium longi ante prœlium itineris, fatigationem Othonianorum, permixtum vehiculis agmen, ac pleraque fortuita fraudi suæ assignantes.—Et Vitellius credidit de perfidiâ, et fraudem absolvit.”
[567] Plutarch, Themist. c. 28.