Read Online Thermopylae by Ernle Bradford - Free Book Online

Greece’s greatest peril. As a Greek and an Athenian, it was unlikely that Themistocles did not have some degree of self-interest at heart: he would have been totally unlike his race if he had not. But even Plutarch, who accused him of ‘malignity’, and in any case was writing long after the events, was forced to admit that a bust-portrait which he had seen of him showed a man who appeared to be noble and heroic. (A copy of this portrait made in Roman times shows a thick-necked, rather flat-faced man, with a large sensitive mouth and an open-eyed ‘bulldog’ appearance. Except for the beard and the moustache, Themistocles has a Churchillian aspect.) Thucydides, one of the greatest and most impartial historians of all times, described him in the following terms:
Themistocles was a man who most clearly presents the phenomenon of natural genius … to a quite extraordinary and exceptional degree. By sheer personal intelligence, without either previous study or special briefing, he showed both the best grasp of an emergency situation at the shortest notice, and the most far-reaching appreciation of probable further developments. He was good at explaining what he had in hand; and even of things outside his previous experience he did not fail to form a shrewd judgement. No man so well foresaw the advantages and disadvantages of a course in the still uncertain future. In short, by natural power and speed in reflection, he was the best of all men at determining promptly what had to be done.
    Had he lived in the twentieth century he might have been a Greek guerilla-leader in the Second World War, a ship-owner subsequently, and then - possibly - Prime Minister. In any case, he would finally have been banished, exiled, or assassinated. The Greeks, the only people in history who have made four major contributions to human culture and civilisation (the spring of Minoan Crete, the summer of fifth-century Athens, the golden autumn of the Alexandrian empire, and the wintry splendour of Byzantium), have so competitive a spirit that they cannot tolerate for long the exceptional brilliance of one man. Nevertheless, it was Themistocles above all others who was to give the lead to his people and to other Greeks in the struggle that was soon to be renewed against Europe by Persia.
    Themistocles was not slow to see (like the maligned Miltiades before him) that a powerful navy was essential for the salvation of Greece. Fine though the Attic hoplites had proved to be at Marathon, outstanding the warriors of Sparta, the strange and rocky land of Greece with its small population could never compete in the long run with the immense manpower of the Persian Empire. Bravery, superior technology, the ‘last ditch’ attitude of men who are defending their homeland against a foreign invader - these were qualities that the Greeks possessed in plenty. But their enemy was numbered ‘as the sands of the sea’. Furthermore, the Phoenician and Egyptian navies, as well as the ships of Cyprus, Ionia, and most of the Aegean islands, far outnumbered the Athenian navy and its allies. It seemed that Greece, and Athens in particular, could only be saved by a miracle: something in which the pragmatic Greeks, unlike the Hebrews, found it difficult to believe.
    The miracle occurred, although in no spiritual form, but in the discovery of a rich vein of silver in the mining area of Laurium near Cape Sunium in 483. The mines were all state-owned and, under normal conditions, the profits from them were shared out among the citizens. The unexpected windfall of the new seam, which would have given every citizen about ten drachmas (a small sum), was diverted by the persuasive powers of Themistocles into building one hundred triremes - a new type of three-banked warship which would for some years give the Greeks command of most of the Mediterranean. It is evidence that the hard-headed Assembly whom Themistocles had to convince were sensible enough of the impending threat