e of the Molossian king, who placed her child in
his arms, and bade him seat himself on the hearth as a suppliant. As
soon as the king arrived, Themistocles explained his peril, and adjured
him by the sacred laws of hospitality not to take vengeance upon a
fallen foe. Admetus accepted his appeal, and raised him from the
hearth; he refused to deliver him up to his pursuers, and at last only
dismissed him on his own expressed desire to proceed to Persia. After
many perils, Themistocles succeeded in reaching in safety the coast of
Asia. Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was now upon the throne of
Persia, and to him Themistocles hastened to announce himself. The king
was delighted at his arrival, and treated him with the greatest
distinction. In a year's time, Themistocles, having acquired a
sufficient knowledge of the Persian language to be able to converse in
it, entertained Artaxerxes with magnificent schemes for the subjugation
of Greece. Artaxerxes loaded him with presents, gave him a Persian
wife, and appointed Magnesia, a town not far from the Ionian coast, as
his place of residence. After living there some time he was carried off
by disease at the age of sixty-five, without having realised, or
apparently attempted, any of those plans with which he had dazzled the
Persian monarch. Rumour ascribed his death to poison, which he took of
his own accord, from a consciousness of his inability to perform his
promises; but this report, which was current in the time of Thucydides,
is rejected by that historian.

Aristides died about four years after the banishment of Themistocles.
The common accounts of his poverty are probably exaggerated, and seem
to have been founded on the circumstances of a public funeral, and of
handsome donations made to his three children by the state. But
whatever his property may have been, it is at least certain that he did
not acquire or increase it by unlawful means; and not even calumny has
ventured to assail his well-earned title of THE JUST.

On the death of Aristides, Cimon became the undisputed leader of the
conservative party at Athens. Cimon was generous, affable,
magnificent; and, notwithstanding his political views, of exceedingly
popular manners. He had inherited the military genius of his father,
and was undoubtedly the greatest commander of his time. He employed
the vast wealth acquired in his expeditions in adorning Athens and
gratifying his fellow-citizens. It has been alre