s. He advised his countrymen to
dismiss the Spartan ambassadors, and to promise that Athenian envoys
should be sent to Sparta to treat with them there respecting the
fortifications. He himself offered to go as one of the envoys, but he
directed the Athenians not to let his colleagues follow him until the
walls, on which all hands should be employed during his absence, should
be raised to such a height as to afford sufficient protection against
any attack that might be made upon them. His advice was followed, and
Themistocles, after his arrival at Sparta, took no steps toward opening
the negotiations, but pretended that he was obliged to wait for the
arrival of his colleagues. When he was informed that the walls had
reached a sufficient height, and when he could drop the mask with
safety, he gave the Spartans a well-deserved rebuke, returned home, and
the walls were completed without any hindrance. He then proceeded to
carry into effect the chief thing which remained to be done to make
Athens the first maritime power of Greece. He induced the Athenians to
fortify the three ports of Phalerum, Munychia, and Piraeus by a double
range of walls.

[Illustration: The victors of Salamis.]

When Athens was thus raised to the station on which it had been the
ambition of Themistocles to place it, his star began to sink, though he
still continued for some time to enjoy the fruits of his memorable
deeds. He was conscious of the services he had done his country, and
never scrupled to show that he knew his own value. His extortion and
avarice, which made him ready to do anything, and by which he
accumulated extraordinary wealth, could not fail to raise enemies
against him. But what perhaps contributed more to his downfall was his
constant watchfulness in maintaining and promoting the interests of
Athens against the encroachments of Sparta, which in its turn was ever
looking out for an opportunity to crush him. The great men who had grown
up by his side at Athens, such as Cimon, and who were no less indebted
to him for their greatness in the eyes of Greece than to their own
talents, were his natural rivals, and succeeded in gradually supplanting
him in the favor of the people. They also endeavored to represent him as
a man of too much power, and as dangerous to the public. The consequence
of all this was that in B.C. 472, he was banished from Athens by the
ostracism. He took up his residence at Argos, where he was still
residing when,