at the time,
answered that Simonides would be a bad poet if he sang out of tune; and
he would be a bad magistrate if he favoured men against the law. At
another time he rallied Simonides on his folly in abusing the
Corinthians, who inhabited so fine a city, and in having his own statue
carved, though he was so ugly. He continued to increase in popularity by
judiciously courting the favour of the people, and was at length able to
secure the triumph of his own party, and the banishment of his rival
Aristeides.

VI. As the Persians were now about to invade Greece, the Athenians
deliberated as to who should be their leader. It is said that most men
refused the post of General through fear, but that Epikydes, the son of
Euphemides, a clever mob-orator, but cowardly and accessible to bribes,
desired to be appointed, and seemed very likely to be elected.
Themistokles, fearing that the state would be utterly ruined if its
affairs fell into such hands, bribed him into forgetting his ambitious
designs, and withdrawing his candidature.

He was much admired for his conduct when envoys came from the Persian
king to demand earth and water, in token of submission. He seized the
interpreter, and by a decree of the people had him put to death, because
he had dared to translate the commands of a barbarian into the language
of free Greeks. He acted in the same way to Arthmias of Zelea. This man,
at the instance of Themistokles, was declared infamous, he and his
children and his descendants for ever, because he brought Persian gold
among the Greeks. His greatest achievement of all, however, was, that he
put an end to all the internal wars in Greece, and reconciled the states
with one another, inducing them to defer the settlement of their feuds
until after the Persian war. In this he is said to have been greatly
assisted by Chileon the Arcadian.

VII. On his appointment as General, he at once endeavoured to prevail
upon his countrymen to man their fleet, leave their city, and go to meet
the enemy by sea as far from Greece as possible. As this met with great
opposition, he, together with the Lacedaemonians, led a large force as
far as the Vale of Tempe, which they intended to make their first line
of defence, as Thessaly had not at that time declared for the Persians.
When, however, the armies were forced to retire from thence, and all
Greece, up to Boeotia, declared for the Persians, the Athenians became
more willing to listen to Themi