Relations between Athens and Sparta were inevitably strained by the circumstances under which the Athenians had gained the leadership of the anti-Persian alliance. An ugly affair involving Pausanias and Themistocles, the victors of Plataea and Salamis respectively, oddly enough may have helped to ease matters.
Pausanias’ opponents in 478 had accused him of “Medizing” - of betraying the Greeks to the Persians or, as these were commonly known in Greece, the “Medes.” As discussed in Chapter 11, Pausanias secured acquittal on those charges, but the Lacedaemonians never sent him out as a commander again. Eventually he left Sparta in a private capacity, gained a following in the Helles-pontine region, captured Byzantium, and held it, allegedly, for seven years (Thuc. I 131; Justin, IX 1,3). Expelled by the Athenians under Cimon, he went to Colonae in the Troad (Thuc. l. c.; Ion of Chios at Plut. Cim. 9). The rumors of his Medism persisted, however; and the Lacedaemonians summoned him thence for a second trial. Pausanias indeed returned to Sparta, but when matters began to look grim for him, he took refuge in the sanctuary of Athena Chalci-oecus there. The ephors had him walled up and let him starve (Thuc. I 134; Diod. XI 45). The date should be in the early 460s BC.
The “evidence” (the letters which Thucydides quotes at I 128-129 are forgeries, as has long been seen) which the ephors had gathered in the course of their investigations allegedly implicated Themistocles too - then living in Argos. In the years following Salamis, Themistocles’ enemies had used a curious tool to end his political career - an ostracism. The Athenian constitution allowed for an annual vote ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 43) to banish any Athenian from Athens for ten years (Plut. Per. 10). When the ten years were up, the man could return home with no additional consequences (Arist. Pol. 1284 - granted, by implication only). Cleisthenes supposedly introduced this institution; allegedly it was antityrannical in inspiration and enabled the Athenians to send into exile any man who was about to establish a tyranny ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 22). In reality it gave the dominant faction in Athens a weapon with which to destroy any politician whom it regarded as a threat (cf. Arist. Pol. l. c.). Themistocles fell victim to such an ostracism (see Figure 12.1) and left Athens for Argos.
Lacedaemonian ambassadors now traveled to Athens and presented their “evidence” to officials there. The Athenian authorities agreed to cooperate in the matter and sent to Argos commissioners charged with arresting Themistocles (Thuc. I 135; cf. Diod. XI 54-55). In all likelihood Themistocles’ enemies in Athens, having already gotten him ostracized, were now availing themselves of an opportunity to kick a man who was already down. Themistocles, however, got wind of what was afoot and fled from Argos. After various narrow escapes - e. g., he passed by Naxos just as the Athenians were besieging it in 465 BC - he arrived at Ephesus, a port then in Athenian hands. Leaving Ephesus, he traveled up-country all the way to Susa where he met with King Artaxerxes I, the son of the man whom he had helped defeat at Salamis. Themistocles was a clever man,
Figure 12.1 An ostrakon with the inscription “Themistocles of (the deme) Phrearhi.” Many of these, often in the same handwriting have been found, so Themistocles’ opponents were organized and ready, handing out prewritten “ballots” against him.
And he rose to the challenge of a personal interview with the King of Persia who, in the end, awarded him with three cities in Asia Minor: Lampsacus, Magnesia on the Meander, and Myus (Thuc. I 136-138; cf. Diod. XI 56-57).
More important in the current context, however, was the official cooperation in the persecution of Themistocles by Sparta and Athens. Whatever lay behind the allegations of Medism against Pausanias and Themistocles, the authorities in Athens (probably for reasons of their own) took it seriously when the Lacedaemonian embassy arrived with charges against Themistocles. But the cooperation itself may have left an impression in Sparta and have done much to dispel the lingering bitterness over events at the end of the Persian Wars. It may also help explain a surprising request which the Lacedaemonians made of the Athenians just a few years after Themistocles’ flight.
World History
