XXVI. When he sailed to Kyme, he found that many of the inhabitants of the Ionic coast were watching for an opportunity to capture him, especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for indeed, to men who cared not how they made their money, he would have been a rich prize, as the Persian king had offered a reward of two hundred talents for him), he fled to Aegae, a little Aeolian city, where he was known by no one except his friend Nikogenes, the richest of all the Aeolians, who was well known to the Persians of the interior. In this man's house he lay concealed for some days. Here, after the feast which followed a sacrifice, Olbius, who took charge of Nikogenes's children, fell into a kind of inspired frenzy, and spoke the following verse:
"Night shall speak and give thee counsel, night shall give thee victory." After this Themistokles dreamed a dream. He thought that a snake was coiling itself upon his belly and crawling up towards his throat. As soon as it reached his throat, it became an eagle and flapped its wings, lifted him up, and carried him a long distance, until he saw a golden herald's staff. The eagle set him down upon this securely, and he felt free from all terror and anxiety. After this he was sent away by Nikogenes, who made use of the following device. Most barbarian nations, and the Persians especially, are violently jealous in their treatment of women. They guard not only their wives, but their purchased slaves and concubines, with the greatest care, not permitting them to be seen by any one out of doors, but when they are at home they lock them up, and when they are on a journey they place them in waggons with curtains all round them. Such a waggon was prepared for Themistokles, and he travelled in it, his escort telling all whom they met that they were conveying a Greek lady from Ionia to one of the king's courtiers.
XXVII. Thucydides and Charon of Lampsakus relate that Xerxes was now dead, and that Themistokles gave himself up to his son; but Ephorus, Deinon, Kleitarchus, Herakleides, and many others, say that it was to Xerxes himself that he came. But the narrative of Thucydides agrees better with the dates, although they are not thoroughly settled.
At this perilous crisis Themistokles first applied to Artabanus, a chiliarch, or officer in command of a regiment of a thousand men, whom he told that he was a Greek, and that he wished to have an interview with the king about matters of the utmost importance, and in which the king was especially interested. He replied, "Stranger, the customs of different races are different, and each has its own standard of right and wrong; yet among all men it is thought right to honour, admire, and to defend one's own customs. Now we are told that you chiefly prize freedom and equality; we on the other hand think it the best of all our laws to honour the king, and to worship him as we should worship the statue of a god that preserves us all. Wherefore if you are come with the intention of adopting our customs, and of prostrating yourself before the king, you may be permitted to see the king, and speak with him; but if not, you must use some other person to communicate with him; for it is not the custom for the king to converse with any one who does not prostrate himself before him." Themistokles, hearing this, said to him, "Artabanus, I am come to increase the glory and power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no impediment to the interview with him which I desire." "Whom of the Greeks," asked Artabanus, "are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem to have the manners of a man of humble station." "No one," answered Themistokles, "must learn my name before the king himself." This is the story which we are told by Phanias. But Eratosthenes, in his treatise on wealth, tells us also that Themistokles was introduced to Artabanus by an Eretrian lady with whom the latter lived.
XXVIII. When he was brought into the king's presence he prostrated himself, and stood silent. The king then told his interpreter to ask him who he was; and when the interpreter had asked this question, he told him to answer, "I am, O King, Themistokles the Athenian, an exile, a man who has wrought much evil to the Persians, but more good than evil, in that I stopped the pursuit when Greece was safe, and I was able to do you a kindness as all was well at home. In my present fallen fortunes I am prepared to be grateful for any mark of favour you may show me, or to deprecate your anger, should you bear a grudge against me. You may see, from the violence of my own countrymen against me, how great were the benefits which I conferred upon the Persians; so now use me rather as a means of proving your magnanimity than of glutting your wrath. Wherefore save me, your suppliant, and do not destroy one who has become the enemy of Greece." Themistokles also introduced a supernatural element into his speech by relating the vision which he saw at the house of Nikogenes, and also a prophecy which he received at the shrine of Jupiter of Dodona, which bade him "go to the namesake of the god," from which he concluded that the god sent him to the king, because they were both great, and called kings. To this speech the Persian king made no answer, although he was astonished at his bold spirit; but in conversation with his friends he spoke as though this were the greatest possible piece of good fortune, and in his prayers begged Arimanios to make his enemies ever continue to banish their ablest men. He is said to have offered a sacrifice to the gods and to have drunk wine at once, and during the night in his soundest sleep he thrice cried out, "I have got Themistokles the Athenian."
XXIX. At daybreak he called together his friends and sent for Themistokles, who augured nothing pleasant from the insults and abuse which he received from the people at the palace gates, when they heard his name. Moreover Roxanes the chiliarch, as Themistokles passed by him in silence into the king's presence, whispered, "Thou subtle serpent of Greece, the king's good genius has led thee hither." But when he was come before the king and had prostrated himself a second time, the king embraced him, and said in a friendly tone that he already owed him two hundred talents: for as he had brought himself he was clearly entitled to the reward which was offered to any one else who would do so. He also promised him much more than this, and encouraged him to speak at length upon the affairs of Greece. To this Themistokles answered, that human speech was like embroidered tapestry, because when spread out it shows all its figures, but when wrapped up it both conceals and spoils them, wherefore he asked for time. The king was pleased with his simile, and bade him take what time he chose. He asked for a year, during which he learned the Persian language sufficiently to talk to the king without an interpreter. This led the people to imagine that he discoursed about the affairs of Greece; but many changes were made at that time in the great officers of the court, and the nobles disliked Themistokles, imagining that he dared to speak about them to the king. Indeed, he was honoured as no other foreigner ever was, and went hunting with the king and lived in his family circle, so that he came into the presence of the king's mother, and became her intimate friend, and at the king's command was instructed in the mysteries of the Magi.
When Demaratus the Spartan was bidden to ask for a boon, he asked to be allowed to drive through Sardis wearing his tiara upright like that of the king. Mithropaustes, the king's cousin, took hold of Demaratus by his tiara, saying, "You have no brains for the king's tiara to cover; do you think you would become Zeus if you were given his thunderbolt to wield?" The king was very angry with Demaratus because of this request, but Themistokles by his entreaties restored him to favour. It is also said that the later Persian kings, whose politics were more mixed up with those of Greece, used to promise any Greek whom they wished to desert to them that they would treat him better than Themistokles. We are told that Themistokles himself, after he became a great man and was courted by many, was seated one day at a magnificent banquet, and said to his children, "My sons, we should have been ruined if it had not been for our ruin." Most writers agree that three cities, Magnesia, Lampsakus, and Myous, were allotted to him for bread, wine, and meat. To these Neanthes of Kyzikus and Phanias add two more, Perkote and Palaiskepsis, which were to supply bedding and clothing respectively.
XXX. On one occasion, when he went down to the seaside on some business connected with Greece, a Persian named Epixyes, Satrap of Upper Phrygia, plotted his assassination. He had long kept some Pisidians who were to kill him when he passed the night in the town of Leontokophalos, which means 'Lion's Head.' It is said that the mother of the gods appeared to him while he was sleeping at noon and said, "Themistokles, be late at Lion's Head, lest you fall in with a lion. As a recompense for this warning, I demand Mnesiptolema for my handmaid." Themistokles, disturbed at this, after praying to the goddess, left the highway and made a circuit by another road, avoiding that place; when it was night he encamped in the open country. As one of the sumpter cattle that carried his tent had fallen into a river, Themistokles's servants hung up the rich hangings, which were dripping with wet, in order to dry them. The Pisidians meanwhile came up to the camp with drawn swords, and, not clearly distinguishing in the moonlight the things hung out to dry, thought that they must be the tent of Themistokles, and that they would find him asleep within it. When they came close to it and raised the hangings, the servants who were on the watch fell upon them and seized them. Having thus escaped from danger, he built a temple to Dindymene at Magnesia to commemorate the appearance of the goddess, and appointed his daughter Mnesiptolema to be its priestess.
XXXI. When he came to Sardis, he leisurely examined the temples and the offerings which they contained, and in the temple of the mother of the gods, he found a bronze female figure called the Water-carrier, about two cubits high, which he himself, when overseer of the water supply of Athens, had made out of the fines imposed upon those who took water illegally.
Either feeling touched at the statue being a captive, or else willing to show the Athenians how much power he possessed in Persia, he proposed to the Satrap of Lydia to send it back to Athens. This man became angry at his demand, and said that he should write to the king, and tell him of it. Themistokles in terror applied himself to the harem of the Satrap, and by bribing the ladies there induced them to pacify him, while he himself took care to be more cautious in future, as he saw that he had to fear the enmity of the native Persians. For this reason, Theopompus tells us, he ceased to wander about Asia, but resided at Magnesia, where, receiving rich presents and honoured equally with the greatest Persian nobles, he lived for a long time in tranquillity; for the king's attention was so entirely directed to the affairs of the provinces of the interior that he had no leisure for operations against Greece. But when Egypt revolted, and the Athenians assisted it, and Greek triremes sailed as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Kimon was master of the sea, then the king determined to attack the Greeks, and prevent their development at his expense. Armies were put in motion, generals were appointed, and frequent messages were sent to Themistokles from the king, bidding him attack Greece and fulfil his promises. Themistokles, unmoved by resentment against his countrymen, and uninfluenced by the thought of the splendid position which he might occupy as commander-in-chief, possibly too, thinking that his task was an impossible one, as Greece possessed many great generals, especially Kimon, who had a most brilliant reputation, but chiefly because he would not soil his glory and disgrace the trophies which he had won, determined, as indeed was his best course, to bring his life to a fitting close. He offered sacrifice to the gods, called his friends together, and, having taken leave of them, drank bull's blood, according to the most common tradition, but according to others, some quickly-operating poison, and died at Magnesia in the sixty-fifth year of a life almost entirely spent in great political and military employments.