ts of Peloponnese. So they sent
with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the pursuit, persons
with instructions to take him wherever they found him. But Themistocles
got scent of their intentions, and fled from Peloponnese to Corcyra,
which was under obligations towards him. But the Corcyraeans alleged
that they could not venture to shelter him at the cost of offending
Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed him over to the continent
opposite. Pursued by the officers who hung on the report of his
movements, at a loss where to turn, he was compelled to stop at the
house of Admetus, the Molossian king, though they were not on friendly
terms. Admetus happened not to be indoors, but his wife, to whom he made
himself a suppliant, instructed him to take their child in his arms
and sit down by the hearth. Soon afterwards Admetus came in, and
Themistocles told him who he was, and begged him not to revenge on
Themistocles in exile any opposition which his requests might have
experienced from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too
low for his revenge; retaliation was only honourable between equals.
Besides, his opposition to the king had only affected the success of a
request, not the safety of his person; if the king were to give him up
to the pursuers that he mentioned, and the fate which they intended for
him, he would just be consigning him to certain death.

The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was
sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of
supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long
afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but sent
him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's dominions, as
he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a merchantman
on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was carried by
a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading Naxos. In his
alarm--he was luckily unknown to the people in the vessel--he told
the master who he was and what he was flying for, and said that, if
he refused to save him, he would declare that he was taking him for a
bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no one leave the ship
until a favourable time for sailing should arise. If he complied with
his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense. The master acted as he
desired, and, after lying to for a day and a night out of reach of the
squadron, at length arrived