[568] Thucyd. i, 138; Diodor. xi, 57. Besides the three above-named places, Neanthês and Phanias described the grant as being still fuller and more specific: they stated that Perkôtê was granted to Themistoklês for bedding, and Palæskêpsis for clothing (Plutarch, Themist. c. 29; Athenæus, i, p. 29).
This seems to have been a frequent form of grants from the Persian and Egyptian kings, to their queens, relatives, or friends,—a grant nominally to supply some particular want or taste: see Dr. Arnold’s note on the passage of Thucydidês. I doubt his statement, however, about the land-tax, or rent; I do not think that it was a tenth or a fifth of the produce of the soil in these districts which was granted to Themistoklês, but the portion of regal revenue, or tribute, levied in them. The Persian kings did not take the trouble to assess and collect the tribute: they probably left that to the inhabitants themselves, provided the sum total were duly paid.
[569] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 31. πλανώμενος περὶ τὴν Ἀσίαν: this statement seems probable enough, though Plutarch rejects it.
[570] Thucyd. i, 138. Νοσήσας δὲ τελευτᾷ τὸν βίον· λέγουσι δέ τινες καὶ ἑκούσιον φαρμάκῳ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὸν, ἀδύνατον νομίσαντα εἶναι ἐπιτελέσαι βασιλεῖ ἃ ὑπέσχετο.
This current story, as old as Aristophanês (Equit. 83, compare the Scholia), alleged that Themistoklês had poisoned himself by drinking bull’s blood (see Diodor. xi, 58), who assigns to this act of taking poison a still more sublime patriotic character by making it part of a design on the part of Themistoklês to restrain the Persian king from warring against Greece.
Plutarch (Themist. c. 31, and Kimon, c. 18) and Diodorus both state, as an unquestionable fact, that Themistoklês died by poisoning himself: omitting even to notice the statement of Thucydidês, that he died of disease. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 10) follows Thucydidês. Cicero (Brutus, c. 11) refers the story of the suicide by poison to Clitarchus and Stratoklês, recognizing it as contrary to Thucydidês. He puts into the mouth of his fellow dialogist, Atticus, a just rebuke of the facility with which historical truth was sacrificed to rhetorical purpose.
[571] Thucyd. i, 138. τὰ δὲ ὀστᾶ φασὶ κομισθῆναι αὐτοῦ οἱ προσήκοντες οἴκαδε κελεύσαντος ἐκείνου, καὶ τεθῆναι κρύφα Ἀθηναίων ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ· οὐ γὰρ ἐξῆν θάπτειν, ὡς ἐπὶ προδοσίᾳ φεύγοντος.
Cornelius Nepos, who here copies Thucydidês, gives this statement by mistake, as if Thucydidês had himself affirmed it: “Idem (sc. Thucydidês) ossa ejus clam in Atticâ ab amicis sepulta, quoniam legibus non concederetur, quod proditionis esset damnatus, memoriæ prodidit.” This shows the haste or inaccuracy with which these secondary authors so often cite: Thucydidês is certainly not a witness for the fact: if anything, he may be said to count somewhat against it.
Plutarch (Themist. c. 32) shows that the burial-place of Themistoklês, supposed to be in Attica, was yet never verified before his time: the guides of Pausanias, however, in the succeeding century, had become more confident (Pausanias, i, 1, 3).
[572] Respecting the probity of Aristeidês, see an interesting fragment of Eupolis, the comic writer (Δῆμοι, Fragm, iv, p. 457, ed. Meineke).