te, at the place where at the present day the public
executioner casts out the bodies of executed criminals, and the clothes
and ropes of men who have hanged themselves. Even in our own times a
small statue of Themistokles used to stand in the Temple of Artemis of
Good Counsel; and he seems to have been a hero not only in mind, but in
appearance. The Athenians made use of ostracism to banish him, in order
to reduce his extravagant pretensions, as they always were wont to do in
the case of men whom they thought over powerful and unfit for living in
the equality of a democracy. For ostracism implied no censure, but was
intended as a vent for envious feelings, which were satisfied by seeing
the object of their hatred thus humbled.

XXIII. When Themistokles was banished from Athens, he lived in Argos,
during which time the proceedings of Pausanias gave a great opportunity
to his enemies. He was impeached on a charge of treason by Leobotes, the
son of Alkmaeon of Agraulai, and the Spartans joined in the impeachment.
Pausanias, indeed, at first concealed his treacherous designs from
Themistokles, although he was his friend; but when he saw that
Themistokles was banished, and chafing at the treatment he had received,
he was encouraged to ask him to share his treason, and showed him the
letters which he had received from the Persian king, at the same time
inflaming his resentment against the Greeks, whom he spoke of as
ungrateful wretches. Themistokles refused utterly to join Pausanias, but
nevertheless told no one of his treasonable practices, either because he
hoped that he would desist, or that his visionary and impossible
projects would be disclosed by other means. And thus it was that when
Pausanias was put to death, certain letters and writings on this subject
were found, which threw suspicion upon Themistokles. The Lacedaemonians
loudly condemned him, and many of his own countrymen, because of the
enmity they bore him, brought charges against him. He did not appear in
person at first, but answered these attacks by letters. In these he told
his accusers that he had always sought to rule, and was not born to
obey; so that he never would sell himself and Greece to be a slave to
the Persians. But in spite of these arguments, his enemies prevailed
upon the Athenians to send men with orders to seize him, and bring him
to be tried by Greece.

XXIV. He was apprised of this in time to take refuge in Korkyra, a State
which was un