The Ancients - Athens vs Persia: The Legend of Themistocles

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

A legend of the great Greek city of Athens, Themistocles rose from obscurity to save ancient Greece and helped shape one of the greatest naval powers in history. Yet his story ends in exile, condemned as a traitor and serving the very empire he once defeated: Persia.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Michael Scott to explore the extraordinary life of Themistocles. Together Tristan and Michael delve into the political intrigue of early Athenian democracy, charting Themistocles’ dramatic rise and equally dramatic fall. How did he persuade Athens to invest in its fleet and defeat Persia's great navy? Why did his career end in disgrace? And how did this architect of Greek victory ultimately find himself in the service of the Persian Empire, the very enemy he swore to destroy?MOREHow to Party Like an Ancient Greek:Listen on AppleListen on SpotifyThe Persian Wars: Xerxes, Thermopylae and Salamis:Listen on AppleListen on Spotify Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. He was one of the founding fathers of the Athenian Empire, the statesman who rose from relative obscurity to lead Athens to victory during its war against the mighty Persian Empire. The charismatic leader who convinced Athens to invest in its ships and become one of the most prolific sea powers of ancient history, and who would then strengthen his beloved city on land too, building miles of fortifications that went on to bear his name. Themistocles. Those are the achievements many recognise this ancient Athenian for today. But Themistocles' reputation wasn't always so pristine. In fact, the real Themistocles was a divisive

political figure who experienced multiple rises and falls, a man who took advantage of a fledgling democracy in Athens at the turn of the 5th century BC to rise high but then ultimately fall. Ending his day is condemned as a traitor and in the service of the Persian king. Yes, that's right. Themistocles ended his days, working for the superpower he is today most famous for beating in battle. Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and this is the story, the rise and falls of Themistocles. Our guest is Dr. Michael Scott, professor of classics and ancient history at Warwick University,

and the author of Thomistocles, The Rise and Fall of Athens' Naval Mastermind. Michael, what a pleasure to have you back on the show. It has been too long. It's fabulous to be here in the studio. Absolutely amazing. And to talk about this fascinating figure of Themistocles, both a hero and a villain and a traitor,

he's loved but he's also hated. I mean, this is a guy who failed and succeeded, all of these contracts, but they define his character so well. Yeah, you know, when Yale University Press came and they said, who would you want to write about for this ancient live series that they were constructing? And pretty quickly, my mind sort of focused in on this guy, Themistocles, because, you know, I've lost count a number of times I'll have mentioned him in lectures and talks over the years, because he is so associated with these one or two really key moments in the story of Athenian and Greek history that are real turning points and real high points, you know, from the Greek perspective for their story. But actually, if you just move the focus away from those moments, what else does he get up to? What happens in between those moments?

Who was he as a person? Kind of what's motivating him? Where does he come from? All of these questions are kind of less often asked. And it felt to me really important to actually do a bit of a work, to fill in the blanks, to be able to understand Themisclays as a whole, as a character, as a life, you know, lived. And I have to say that at the same time as I started writing this book, my wife and I were expecting our son. And he was born about a week or so after I finished the first draft of the book.

And the book is dedicated to him because what became really clear to me is the mysticles is famous, infamous for the amazing things, these amazing moments. And what we often do, I think, when we look at famous and successful people is we see, in hindsight, this great successful career. And as a result, every step in that career ends up looking like it was a natural progression to the next successful thing, that the rise was assured, the success was inevitably going to happen, that they knew exactly what they were doing at every stage of their lives. And what became really clear from really digging into the career of themistically is that his life was not at all like that. You know, that actually his start was very uncertain. his background, no one would have picked him out as being somebody that was going to go on to do something special.

And more importantly, every decision he made, he didn't know that it was going to be a success and where it was going to lead to. And more importantly, as you've outlined, you know, as many decisions as you might have got right, he also got an equal number absolutely stonkingly wrong. And so what we've got here, I hope, is a portrait of a life as lives have really lived. And that's why it was really important for me in the subtitle of the book. to make sure that it had, you know, Themiscus, the rise and fall of Athens' naval statesmen. And, you know, if I'd had my way, to be honest, I would have said, the rise is and the falls, or the rise and the fall and the rise and the fall and the fall again.

Because that is the reality of Themisercles' life. And to me, that makes him much more interesting. It's more relatable, isn't it? Much more interesting, much more, you know, much more relatable. But also, as a reminder to my infant son, who at the moment is not reading Themistocles, you know, He's very much in Pepper Pig era age two, but in the future that, you know, when you look around you and you see these people with these great successful careers and brilliant things that they've done, actually digging into that always reveals a much more uncertain

and a much more uneven career. And that is everyone's life. I feel we should mention, though, first of all, those big moments that he is associated with. What are these moments that become almost the gateway drug for people to want to learn more about this figure? Yeah, so there are effectively two, right? And the first is when Themistocles is, you know, he's in his 30s. He is now, at this point, we're talking about the late 490s and into the 480s BCE in Athens. And he is clearly a powerful and important voice within the Athenian city state at this time. And he's playing important roles within the civic infrastructure and the political system. And he's start saying we should think about the sea people. We should think about building up, not just

our natural port, because Pereus, which is the modern-day port of Athens, was not actually at the time the port that the Athenians used for their fleet. It was just around a bay or two around at a place called Faleron, but he's associated with the story of, right, let's build up the Pereus. It's a much better, more defensible, bigger harbour. And then when the Athenians in the middle of the 480s, discover completely by accident, this big new seam of silver and the place called Laurion and the territory of Attica, the countryside around Athens, and they go, what should we do with it? And there's a big debate. On the one hand, Athens at this point is a fledgling democracy, and they go, well, we should divide it up equally and each have an equal share. And the mysticles is

accredited with saying, now, let's use this to absolutely leapfrog all other competitors in the Greek world and build a navy that were catapulters into being the most preeminent sea power of the Greek world. And, you know, looking at that, it's a great tactical decision because they were never going to be able to challenge on land. They were already really, really good Greek land armies. Think the Spartans. Think anyone else, right? But on sea, actually, there was a chance for Athens to become preeminent.

And so they invest the money in this fleet. Now, that's a good decision in the world of the Greek world, where, as you know, it's not one unified country, it's up to a thousand different city states who are spending their entire time just basically shouting and at war with one another. And within that context, it's a good decision. But it becomes a brilliant decision when just a couple of years later, the Persians turn up and they turn up with this enormous Amada and land army. And suddenly Athens' navy is absolutely critical in helping to defeat that Persian navy.

at the Battle of Salamis, at which the Mystocles is also credited with having a brilliant tactical idea to draw the Athenian, the Persian fleet, I should say, into the narrow straits of Salamis, between the island of Salamis and the Territory of Attica, where the Athenian superior naval techniques and tactics and ships can actually have a chance to defeat the much bigger in terms of numbers Persian Navy. So that's the kind of moment number one, which is associated with the sea and with command and mastery of the sea that then becomes critical in the defeat of the Persians. And if there's a second moment, it's in the mid-470s when Themistocles, you know, actually has had a fall. We think, kind of, he's this great general who has led the

Athenians to victory at Salamis. He's been the brilliant architect of this naval kind of armada. And then he gets completely dropped. You know, the kind of next year, in the early four-sevian, you don't hear anything about him. The Athenian people have just shoved him aside and gone, thanks very much, and moved on. And he has to reinvent his importance with a new issue. And that new issue for him is wall building. And so he suddenly becomes the biggest proponent of Athens building itself, some really stout defensible city walls that will eventually become the city walls around Athens, city walls around the port of Pereus, and the walls that link the two. So Athens is completely, if you like, are protected from land attack and able to sustain long-term seas.

These are the so-called long walls. The so-called long walls of Athens. And again, within, you know, five or six decades, these will become absolutely instrumental in helping Athens to survive for as long as it did in the great Greek civil war, the Peloponnesian War that will break out. So, you know, building an armada at sea and focusing on Athenian mastery at sea and then protecting Athens itself through these. city walls are these two big kind of key moments that Themistocles gets associated with. So that's good to start us off there, but as we're going to explore, there is so much more. It is not just those big moments, but we can still explore them as well. To learn more about Themistocles today, do we have quite a lot of source material?

We do and we don't. Interesting. So he appears in the great historical narratives of the era. So Herodotus, obviously, writing his histories. Rodotus is writing in the 420s BC. So sometime after the Misklyzes died, it's definitely not a kind of, Therodotus himself is hearing stories from others that have been passed down to him that he's then recording. And he's the so-called father of history. The so-called father of history.

You know, kind of he's there, the guy who is, he comes up with the word history, whereas it's a historiia in the Greek, an investigation into why did the Greeks and Persians come to fight together in the Persian War? So obviously, Ther Misticese has a role to play in that. he's also mentioned a lot by the next great historian of the Greek world Thucydides, who's writing at the very end of the 5th century. But again, a little bit further away in time and reflecting. And then, you know, he gets picked up by different historians over the period, but you dialed through to the sort of the first centuries AD, and you're getting then Plutarch, who is writing a whole series of biographies,

but specifically of people that he wants you to emulate. you know, Plutarch wrote about lives of people he thought would be good to try and copy. And so you get this biography of Themistocles, but it's all the good bits, right? You know, so that bit we're talking about where he gets dumped by the Athenian people after 480 and sort of gone, thank you, and, you know, now move on. There's nothing heroic to say about the mysticles during that period. And so Plutarch is absolutely silent about me. He's like, oh, let's skip over that and, you know, get back to when he rises again.

And then we have later biographers than Pluto with Cornelius Napos. We have third and fourth century kind of rhetoricians who write these bizarre sort of fake court speeches of Themistocles and his dad who are going against one another court. So there's lots of later evidence. The problem is, as ever, we'd love some actually contemporary evidence from the era of Themistocles. And that is few involved between. There's no kind of historical narratives that are surviving. We do have some coins that Themistocles himself issued in the last era of his life that give us a really good indication of, well, he's directing what these coins look like.

So they tell us a little bit about his mindset. We have some archaeological material, again, really closely associated with Themistocles that we can come back to, which give us those kind of inns. But otherwise, we are trying to construct an understanding of what this guy was like in a period of time for Athens, which was itself a period of fundamental change, and which the Athenians later on were constantly mythologising, because this is the era of the development of Athens' democracy. And so kind of trying to split apart real history from that mythologising of the origins of something

that would go on to become so important for them is a really tough thing to do. There's very much a legend of the Mysticles that evolves over the centuries. their father. And he's totally associated, his legend is totally associated with the legend of the development of democracy. And you can see why. I mean, if you dial back to, he's born 5243 BC. When Athens is under a tyrant ruler, right? Democracy hasn't been invented. Word doesn't exist. No concept of it. When he's 10, there is the murder of the son of that tyrant ruler who had moved to become the tyrant after the death of his father at a big Athenian festival and things start to really shake in the kind of foundations of Athenian society. When he's 16, that's the big

revolution moment of 508 BCE when the whole of Athens supposedly rose up and threw off the tyrant ruler and decided to throw their lot in with this bizarre system where of equality, right? They still wasn't called democracy at that moment. They didn't have that word. But the entire political system of Athens changes when Themistocles is 16 years old. And as he becomes an adult 18, 19, 20, that's when Athens starts to suddenly, as a result, many think of this new political system, really starts to grow in influence and power. So, kind of, he is literally growing up into a world that is itself in absolute tumultuous change and will become the system that everyone knows and talks about of Athenian democracy.

Well, I'd love to cover those early years, because when we often do one of these big figures from ancient history, usually the cases we know next to nothing about their earliest years. But do we have any idea about Themistocles' background and what he would have been up to during those 16 years right at the end of the age of tyranny in Athens? We can guess a picture of kind of his day-to-day, right, and the kind of education that he might have had and the kind of experience he might have had. But I think what is really important to understand from what we know about the Mr. Cleese is that if the system around him had not changed in the direction that it did, it's very unlikely he would have amounted to anything.

Really? Because what we know about him is that he is not from one of the elite aristocratic families of Athens that hitherto had pretty much governed what I'm. Athens went on to do. But if Athens was a tyranny at that moment, is it, even if one of those aristocratic families, they're not linked to the tyranny, but would they have usually been the big advisors or the significant figures in that tyranny? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, kind of the, I mean, effectively at the period that the Mystocles is born,

there are two major rival families, you know, the Pisistritids and kind of, on one hand, the Alchemionids, and between them, they're pretty much, you know, power sharing. I mean, it's hard not to draw some kind of analogies to the modern world, you know, and the kind of dynasties of families that kind of occupy political positions. And, you know, we can do that as for saying. But the mystically is when he's born, you know, he's not from a poor family, but what would we call that modern middle class, middle marpa, maybe, but certainly not kind of the elite aristocrats.

And his dad is, you know, operating really on the boundaries. He's in the military, you know, he's operating at the boundaries of the Athenian world kind of fighting force. He's an Athenian citizen, his dad, but the sources are really clear that his mum is not an Athenian. And then the sources differ on quite how non-Athenian she is.

Sometimes, you know, she's just from another Greek city state. Some people say she's from like, whoa, the far edges of the Greek world. Some people say, you know, she's a complete and utter foreigner. Some go so far as to say that she's a prostitute. So we've got this odd picture of Themistocles when he's born.

You know, he's not from a great family. He's got a non-citizen mother and then depending on which source you believe, like kind of a really non-citizen mother, and so he's got a very liminal position in Athens when he's born. And he sort of comes under this definition of what the Greeks would refer to as a, what we translate as a bastard, you know, effectively.

But what it means is he's only got one citizen parent. And that puts him in a very disadvantageous position, particularly if the political system had not gone on to change the way it did. But, you know, so he's growing up. We think at some point in his very early years, so in that first decade, he moves back from wherever he was stationed, kind of where his dad was stationed, back to not living in the center of town in Athens, not in the big city, but actually in the sleepy countryside of Attica. And so, but, you know, again, from a point of view of thinking about a political career, he's not where the action is.

he's in this tiny little town not amounting to a whole hill of beans in terms of his parentage and his opportunity enough money in the family to get a good decent education and the later sources talk about him as a pupil a student at school as being really

precocious and really intelligent and we're always pushing back against the authority all the things that we'd like to see in a child that will go on to do the things that the mysticles will do and you know kind of then as we said 16 he's seeing the system starts change and this new kind of system of equality emerging where

there is a chance for any voice to emerge if it's strong enough, powerful enough and convincing enough. And some point in the kind of early 20s he comes into the city of Athens and we would love dearly to know more about how he then goes about climbing the kind of, call it a greasy pole, if you like, of kind of Athenian civic office. But he clearly puts in the graft. And we hear snippets of it. Like, so he occupies the role of water commissioner at some point. Now, that sounds a bit dull. But on the other hand, in Greece, in antiquity, in the heat, actually, the person in charge of ensuring that's super important. Water is super important. And he clearly does a good enough job all of these roles because when he really comes into focus is at the end of the four 90s

and he is Archon, he's magistrate, he's appointed magistrate of the city and that's at the age of 31 and you had to be a minimum of 30 to occupy the role. So he gets there pretty quick after the minimum age. So clearly through his 20s he has been building a rep in Athens where enough people have confidence in his ability to then entrust him with this this key magistracy of the city. You can imagine a young and furry for Mr Cleese, can't you?

Like when that tyranny is overthrown as it going to the big city, he's a teenager, but he's deciding, right, I'm going to make the most of this. And as you say, we wish we could know more about that decade or so that first decade,

but seemingly he climbs, he climbs the new, greasy, democratic poll and by the time of his early 30s, he's in a really good position. Yeah. But it could not have happened if the world around him hadn't changed at the time that it did. Because he wouldn't have been listened to. He wouldn't have been given the chance to put his voice in his view forward. The position of Archon, should we see it something like the position of Consul, that kind of really high position in the state?

Yeah. So there were, in Athens, there were three kind of archons. They divided up kind of responsibilities for different things between. So one was a very religious focused arc on making sure that all. all the religious kind of rights and customs were abided by, so the gods were still on side. One was much more military-focused, who would be actually the kind of general on the battlefield. And then the one in the middle, the one that Themistocles occupied, if you like, had a kind of political, judicial sort of focus and mandate. And so in that year that he was Archon, we know that Themistocles had to be involved in the trial of the great Athenian general Miltides, who was put on trial for kind of getting involved in what we know as the Ionian Revolt.

So at the very early 490s, Athens had decided, it was getting a bit cocky, some good victories, it decided to send some ships to aid in a rebellion against the Persian king that was happening on the other side of the Aegean over in Ionia. And this all goes spectacularly wrong, and Milaides is involved, And so he ends up on trial for treason in Athens during the year that Themistocles is kind of Archon. So Themistocles could see at first hand quite how much this Athenian thing that had been created, this Athenian system of equality that will come to be known as democracy in the decades to come. Like, pick people up.

If the Hydez was a famous guy, really important, you know, you think, and then absolutely slap them down again. Right. And during that trial, when his Arkhamatat, Mardis is actually acquitted. And he will go on then to play a brilliant role in a couple of years' time at the Battle of Marathon, which is when the Persians first invade Greece. But there were examples in front of the Mystically's eyes from that very moment onwards of how much the Athenian state like to rise people up, raise people up, and then chuck them down.

In a weird kind of way, how fickle the Athenian state could be, kind of going on the urges, of the public, the emotions that were there that you see time and time again in the thing in democracy from then on. Yeah, it's the scary and not very pleasant underbelly of a direct democratic system that it is about the will of the collective people. And even more scarily within the Athenian case, you know, this was not a will that was decided, you know, and views that were decided upon patient, thoughtful reflection and study of documents and evidence and all this. It effectively, was a system that listened to what people had to say and got swayed by how convincing the people were that said it.

It's the rise of the demagogues, isn't it? Yeah. So, effect, if you could swing the people, if you were a great orator, if you were a great persuader, as the miscly, you know, clearly kind of became, you had a really good chance to get the people going one way or the other. But at the same time, the Athenian, what becomes really crucial in the kind of Athenian self-identity is that, It's about the collective.

It's not about the individual. And so all of these individuals, like Miltaiis, like a number of others, like the mysticles, eventually, if they step over that line and start saying, well, I did this, you know, I led you to victory. I'm responsible. People were like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's about us. It's our victory. and that line was really at the core of understanding the Athenian collective identity and the reasons that individuals fell foul of it.

So it's still 494, is that that's the time of when he's Arkon? Yeah. And do we know of any other big events during this time? Is there a story with Persian ambassadors? So, yeah, so, you know, at this point, there had been that Ionian revolt back in the early 94 90s that the Athenians had seen fit to kind of send some ships to support. It had gone spectacularly wrong. The Persian king is going, who are these, I mean, these upstart little kind of Greek flees on the hide of the great Persian Empire, you know, and so quite, you know,

tough, and had sent ambassadors through Persia going, right, you know, you guys all have to submit to me. And the way you do that is you offer me token, gifts of earth and water from your land. So it goes to the Greek cities. Yeah, yeah. Go, right. You know, come on. And the threat was, if you don't, I'll rock up in due course with an army and I'll crush you.

You know, most Greek cities went, yep, absolutely. Here's the earth and the water. The Athenians sit there, you know, they've got their assembly now, and they sit there, and they discuss what to do. And then the story goes that, on the one hand, some are saying, no, you know, let's not give earth and water, right? no, let's not give earth and water and let's kill those messengers

which was a big deal because they're sacred they're sacred to the gods messengers in that sense and you're not supposed to harm don't shoot the messenger right kind of thing and the mystically goes on further

yes kill them and let's kind of kill them in a really unpleasant way so clearly the mysticles here is part of a kind of dialogue where he's trying to gain a certain amount of influence, credence visibility within the public dialogue and one of the ways he can do that is by putting up a more extreme suggestion than anyone else's.

Now, kind of what happens is they do, you know, famously kill the messengers, and of course the Persian King ain't too happy about this. And so lands on the plains of Marathon, which is in the territory of Attica outside of Athens, with a fleet. And he also brings with him the old tyrant that the Athenians had chucked out back in 508 BC to reinstate, you know, kind of as the ruler. becomes not only a sort of, I'm going to teach you Greeks a lesson for, and particularly your Athenians a lesson for refusing me, but I'm going to take away this system of

equality you've got and I'm going to put you back under the rule of a friendly tyrant. Now, Thamesicles is there fighting at the Battle of Mass. We know he was there kind of, you know, he was one of the soldiers, could have been in charge of his contingent from his kind of group as well. But the big lead on the day, the big general on the day is that same guy, Miltides, who kind of was acquitted from treason and when Thimisclos was all. on. And it's Miltides that sort of is held responsible for the victory. But of course, he's not allowed to be held responsible for the victory because it's an Athenian collective. And amazingly, the Athenians are victorious over the Persians at Marathon and the Persians depart again.

And so Thamistocles is at the forefront of that first Persian engagement with Athens. And, you know, that will be something that the later bioreaucer, like to kind of point to going, you know, it was the Mystocles who saw that this was not over. Persians left, but he knew, you know, and this is the kind of vision of the brilliant tactician and the brilliant foresightedness and the kind of thing that they would be back, as opposed to the rest of the Athenians, who thought, yay, job done, threat over, let's go back to life as normal. And do they like these biographers later who were trying to lord the Mysticles as the man who can read the future, who knows what's going to happen next?

do they like portraying the other argument for you, well, through one particular prominent voice in the assembly, that idea that there's this big rival back in Athens who is supporting the other, the other idea, what they should do with the money and so on and so forth? Yeah, so there is a guy that will be the sort of long-term rival. Yeah, the counterpart. He's the guy called Aristides.

And Pluto also liked him. There's a life of Aristides as well. You know, there's good things to say about him as well. But between the two of them, they are set up. up to be Themistocles, who's the impetuous, swift-thinking, breaking tradition coming up with the, you know, the impossible idea when everyone thought there was lost kind of guy. And Aristides is the slow but sure, sensible, trustworthy, thoughtful individuals. So post-Marathon, Aristides and Thomisicales were both fighting there at the battle. It's Aristides who is given the honour of

standing guard over all the loot that the Greeks and particularly the Athenians have captured off the Persians after the battle, while everyone else has to run off back to Athens, the marathon race, back to Athens to kind of help defend in case the Persians were to come back. And Themisicales, in the sources, the later sources is kind of like be cheesed off that Aristides gets this honour. And you can see that he's cheesed off because some of the sources talk about the fact that he goes well, well, you know, I mean, if you want to be a banker, kind of sort of thing, you're trying to rubbish the honour that Aristides has been given. But throughout, their lives, throughout the next

decades, particularly the 480s and the 470s, Aristides and Themistakles become these big yin and yang kind of voices within the Athenian Assembly that are butting heads on most of the key decision moments and offering up two views and two ways to go. And does it ever get so far

as that one might want to try and get the other one executed, or is there a certain limit to their political rivalry? No, I mean, it's gloves off. I mean, it's definitely gloves off. So in the 480s, we've had the invasion of Marathon, great. Into the 480s, that's the decade when Themistocles is convincing the Athenian Assembly to spend that money. The silver mine's mentioned money in the 480s on building the big fleet.

So clearly he's having some success, you know, persuading them what to do. And during that point in time, you know, Aristides ends up sort of losing that debate. And what happens in the 480s in particular is the Athenian people in that kind of again. The power of the collective is rising. The power of the individual. They like listening to the individual. The individual can have influence, but it can't be about the individual. A new system of political expulsion is invented called ostracism.

Right. Okay. Now, ostracism, we call it ostracism today because what the Greeks did, the Athenians did, was they would write the name of a particular individual on a little piece of broken pottery that in ancient Greek was called an ostracon. And so, ostracon, the thing you voted on for the exile vote, has given us our word ostracism. And the Athenians would turn up,

and basically they would write the name of the person who they thought really needed to be kicked out of the city, and the person with the most votes got kicked out for 10 years. And so there... 10 years is cool. Yeah, so... And it's clear that the 480s is the moment when the Athenians kind of grasp this power that they have.

So ostracism probably existed in the system theoretically from before that, but they've never used it. And then suddenly in the 480s, half of the known cases of ostracism from the entirety of the 5th century BCE happened in the 480s. So clearly the Athenians in this moment just go, right, you know, kind of like we've got this power to exercise over individuals who are getting too big for their boots, who are perhaps to associate you with tyranny or kind of, you know, we just want to get rid of them. And ostracism very quickly becomes one of those political weapons whereby the different voices,

you know, I mean, it's doggy here, it's hunger games, it's, you know, beast games or whatever you want in the analogy to be. Because we know that all of them are being voted for. Thamistocles' name appears on those ostrichor through the 480s, but he's just not the guy with the most votes. Is this one of those amazing bits of archaeological evidence that you mentioned earlier? Yeah. So his name are one of those things.

So these ostracus five, because after the vote, they're just discarded. You know, kind of, and then we dig them up and we can, they basically end up being buried in sort of particular caches that we can then date to particular votes. But Aristides, his rival, does end up getting ostracized as part of that towards the end of the 480s. And so you can see that this is a highly dynamic system in which these individuals who are rising to prominence and are wanting to put forward their views and they're wanting to convince the people of a particular course of action, was not without the danger of ending up becoming the butt of the Athenians going, you're out. It's one of those fun what-if moments, isn't it, if Themistocles had been ostracized in the 480s rather than his rival Aristides? Quite literally, the course of history could have changed completely because Themisikles hangs in there.

And then when the Persians come back, you know, at the end of in 480 with a much bigger land army and fleet than ever before, and this is the moment when, you know, the land army will be held by the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, and the fleet will be sort of held, including by a sort of Greek fleet, but it's mainly an Athenian fleet because they've got this big, big, big fleet. And Thomistocles is the kind of commander of the Athenian fleet at this time. You know, they're held parallel with Thermopylae on land. There's a battle at a place called Artemisium on sea, and then they have to all fall back. The 300s, you know, Spartans die, the fleet retreats.

And you get to a point where the Greek fleet is in constant. constant possibility of falling completely apart. You know, all the Greek city states that are coming together are going, you know what, there's no way we can take on this Persian fleet. We might as well, we'll just sail for our hometowns and scatter and every man for themselves kind of mentality. And Themisticles is the sort of one voice, really, that's trying to hold this fleet together,

and it ends up sheltering on the island of Salamis, which is just off the coast of Attica. At this point, you know, actually, Themisicales has been instrumental, we think, in getting the Athenians to evacuate their city. So they've all fled out of Athens. The Persian king has come down through the whole of mainland Greece, occupied the city of Athens. The Athenians are sitting on the island of Salamis. They're seeing Athens burn, smoke hollowing up in the sky. The fleet's there, and it is on the cusp of just disintegrating. And is this where we get that story? You also do a lot of work on Delphi.

and the prophecies from the Oracle at Delphi, this idea of trusting in their wooden wall. And Themistocles is like, that wooden wall, it's the ships, it's not actually a physical wall. Yeah, so the Athenians go to consult the great Oracle at Delphi because why wouldn't you, right? It's such a kind of crisis existential moment. And the story is hilarious in that the Athenian ambassadors who go,

the first time apparently they speak to the Pythian priestess, the Erecula priestess at Delphi, she just goes, run away, run away, and they go, no, no, we can't take that answer back, you know, give us another answer. And so you get this answer, this kind of prophetic sort of ambiguous phrase, you trust in your wooden walls, and they have to take that back to Athens, and they have to decide what that is. And some people think it's the old wooden wall that runs around the acropolis, the great rock at the center of Athens, on which the great sanctuary at the center of Athens is. And so they think, right, everyone should run up to the acropolis. And you can

understand that because actually in previous times and moments, that's what the Athenians have done. And it's a pretty well-defendable kind of rock brag, ancient volcanic plug thing, you know, kind of that could be, could be the answer. But Thomisicales is the one saying, no, no, no, it's the wooden hulls of our ships, of our fleet. You know, we need to get out of Athens and we need to put our faith in the fact that we can actually use this fleet to turn the course of this war. But all of this fails, right? You know, you appeal to the... oracular kind of pronouncements, that's not going to hold the Greek fleet together. Then Themistocles turns to basically threats. And he says, right, if you don't all stay here, I'm going

to take the Athenian fleet and we're going to sail to the other side of the Mediterranean and you guys are going to be toast because without us, you really don't have a chance. And that works for a little bit. But then even that doesn't start working. Then he goes, right, okay, what about if I kind of call on all the gods to come and supporters? And there's these brilliant things that he does, like sends a ship off to a nearby island that has supposedly is the mythical home of a particular god. And there's a couch put on the sort of deck of the ship, you know, and the god is invited to come off the island and sit on the couch and be transported back to fight in the line of the Greek fleet. So all of these kind of really kind of mythological, but inspiring, sort of

motivational sort of kind of things. But even that doesn't work, you know, to hold it together. And so we get to this infamous moment where around about the 25th of September 480 BC Thomistocles comes up with a plan which effectively is this, he sends his slave secretly at night across the

Greek lines to the Persian camp who are now occupying Athens and the fleet's all there to get a message to the Persian king to say Thomistically the Athenian commander wants to defect and as a sign of this defection I'm going to tell you that the Greek fleet it all wants

to escape and run away. So the best thing you can do is send your Persian fleet right now into the Straits of Salamis to stop them getting away and then you can crush them once and for all. You know, signed your best friend, you know, Themistakles. Now, you know, people look at this and go, okay, with the benefit of hindsight, that this turns out to be a brilliant tactical move and the Greeks win at Salamis and defeat the Persian invasion, you see this as Themistocles.

the brilliant tactician tricking the Persian king into coming into the Straits of Salamis. But you could also see it as the Mystocles really wanting to make sure he had options. Because if the Persian king had defeated the Greeks, that kind of sign would have helped the Mysticles be spared the wrath of the Persian king because he'd helped the Persian king. So was this a moment in which the Mysticles was reading the tea leaves and going, this could go either way, I'm going to make sure that both routes for me are open. Or was this the Mystocles, you know, brilliantly trapping the Persian king and assuring Greek victory? Wow. Over to you guys.

To decide. I mean, whichever way he was thinking, it is pretty clever. But at the same time, I guess even though he is, I mean, today he's seen as the man who wins the Bast of Salamis, does it smear his reputation in the immediate years following? Well, this is the curious thing. So the Battle of Salamis turns out to be this great tactical victory because the Persian fleet bought the trick and sailed into the Straits of Sanamus.

Suddenly in these narrow straits, their numbers counted for nothing, and the Greek fleet could pick them off. And so there's this great moment where the Greek fleet defeats the Persian fleet, and that turns the tide of the entire war. The Persian king leaves Greece almost immediately. And the following year, there's a great lamb battle at Plataia in 479 when the land army of the Persians is defeated, because the Greeks have got momentum now, you know, kind of,

and then the Persian threat dissipates. Themistocles plays no role in the Battle of Latia. And this is this curious kind of rise and fall moment, the first rise and fall, if you like, that he's so instrumental at Salamis, and yet he's then given nothing. He's silent. For the first half, really, of the four-seventies,

he's kind of just upset. Gosh. And do we know why? Did he just get, once again, too big for his boots and everyone was just like, right, okay, well done. You won the big battle.

Now, remember, it's a democracy. You didn't win it, actually. We won the battle. I think there's definitely an element of that. We won the battle. I think by this time, everyone kind of is really kind of frustrated with him as a character

because he's been sitting there, lambasting everyone, shouting at everyone, trying to convince everyone, pushing everyone to stay together. So frankly, I think people are quite happy not to be listening to him. but also because there's a complete change of direction. The sea is no longer the key thing.

They've won the Battle of the Sea. Now it's about the Battle of Land. And he's not the Premier Land General. They've got others that they listen to and do listen to for the Battle of the Patriot. So you can see how the spotlight, the kind of Athenian spotlight, very quickly shifts off him because the need shifts off him.

And he's left there in the 470s having to kind of reinvent and find another issue to reclaim the spotlight. And that's when he gets on his city walls gig. Shall we go to that final act, that final fall of the mysticles in Athens? Because I love this part of the story. It's not he was always against the Persians. And actually what you mentioned about Salamis,

that kind of actually look at the two sides of the coin for him going to the Persian king. He isn't always an enemy. How does he actually end up in favor with Persia? It's one of those great stories through the 470s. So no role post-Salemus, fine. finds his city wall kind of gig. Everyone kind of, he's at the top of his game again. But clearly by the end of the four-70s,

he's forgotten that crucial lesson about, don't get too big for your boots. It's about the collective, not the individual. And one of the best moments, which is confirmed by the archaeology, we found this particular temple that he sets up, in his kind of home little area

of the centre of Athens, he sets up a temple to Artemis, right? Artemis with an epithet, so a particular emphasis on Artemis being worship to that temple. Artemis Aristoboula, Artemis, the good counsellor.

Fine. Except he goes and puts a bust of himself in the temple precinct. You know, it's not subtle. And in a system whereby it's not about you, it's about the collective, that goes down like a lead balloon. Putting yourself as a statue

right next to a god. Saying, it's my great council that has saved you, you know, the Athenian. And so in 471, there is an ostracism vote. guess who gets the most votes? It's the Mysticles. So he's out of Athens.

But, you know, he's not out and out for the camp forever, because exile, the ostracism exile was supposed to be, we just want you out and gone for a while. But after that, you can come back and it will be fine. Contemplate. Yeah, yeah. Just reflect, you know, kind of take a chill. What happens in the next couple of years

is the people who really hate him in Athens actually get him involved with a treason plot against the Greeks that also involves a Spartan general. And suddenly he finds himself on trial for treason in Athens. And he doesn't go back, he's in exile, he doesn't go back to Athens to stand trial, and he's therefore then tried in absentia, found guilty, and thus sentenced to death. So suddenly things have changed pretty quick. And he is now, you know, no way back for him in Athens. And in fact, actually, those people really, and the Athenian people are so fed up with him and so kind of, their blood is heated, if you like, for the Miscocles at this point,

that he tries to find a somebody in Greece that will give him safe, you know, safe home, secure kind of lodging, and no one will touch him. So he's sitting there going, hang on a sec, I was the savior of Greece, and I'm now no longer safe in Greece at all. And he looks at it, and to his credit,

he goes, right, I'll get on a ship for Persia then. He's in his 50s at this point. So I think a 50-year-old man sails across the seas to Persia, somehow make his way safely across the Persian Empire into the court of the Persian King. And he somehow manages to do this, and he stands in front of the Persian King, and it could be the same guy that he tricked at Salamis, or there's a change over a Persian

king that happens. So it could be Xerxes. Could be his son, right? But one of these, is either, I tricked your dad or I tricked you, right? You know, the Persian king, whoever he is, knows Themistocles by name, right? It's that kind of like, there's a bounty on his head kind of thing. And he stands there and he goes, give me a year to learn Persian so I can speak to you in your own language and talk to you about this, but I can be of use to you. And the Persian king gives him that year. And to his credit, it is said that no Greek had ever learned Persian as good as the Mysticales. And as a result, the Mysticales went on to have a closer relationship with the Persian king than any Greek had hitherto before him. Was in his inner circle, etc.

he's given a living, he's given some towns to sort of, you know, mini rule over. That's when he issues his coinage, you know, that we have kind of surviving. So, kind of this third act, as you say, we've had this initial rise and fall, Salamis and then Pletia silence. Second rise and fall, kind of city walls and then exile out of Greece and treason, and he's, you know, kind of sentenced to death. And then this third rise where he becomes this trusted advisor of the Persian king. and the final fall is sort of into the 50s

and Themistocles basically eventually the Persian king turns around to me and goes right I'm now ready to attack Greece again time for you to make good on your promise to advise me how to do it properly and Themistocles at that point sees no way forward in that he so the sources tell us

doesn't want to actually betray Greece to that degree, despite everything Greece has done to him. And so commits suicide. Right. Has the honorable way out. And so, you know, the odd thing is that at the end of Themistocles' life when he dies, he's honored by the Persian king. They respect, he respects the decision.

He gets a nice tomb built in in the Persian Empire near the towns where he was living. But in Greece, he is still the exiled, condemned. greater and no friend of Greece. So the question is, how do we go from that? Yes. To, by the end of the 5th century, Thucydides in his great history, calling Themistocles, the most illustrious Greek of his generation. How?

How? You know, how can you completely retell history? And it comes back again to that changing Athenian political system. And the other lesson I think kind of that's really come out for me from Themistocles in this book, you know, thinking again for myself or others, my son will, but you know, kind of growing up, it kind of is that

reputations are an odd thing and actually they're made for you by others, not, you know, you're making them for yourself in many ways. So Themistocles at his death is absolutely persona non grata in Greece. But you get into the 450s, so the decade after, you know, kind of Themistocles is death and then into the 440s, the decade after,

that's the era when Athens' democracy becomes the democracy ruling an Athenian empire. The Deleon League turned to empire. It's the building of the Parthenon moment. It's Athens at the top of its game. And it's in Athens that realizes it's at the top of its game because of what? Oh, it's fleet, right?

Which is able to have that imperial power extending across the Aegean. And so as a result, they take a look back at their kind of history, and they realize that this guy, who committed treason, apparently, an exile from Athens, was the one seemingly responsible for putting Athens on this course. And so very quickly, 450 and into the 440s, his reputation is completely rehabilitated in Athens. Whitewash and forget the bit about him heading off to Persia,

this is the guy who helped Athens become the supreme empire that she is today. A portrait of Themistocles is hung inside the Parthenon. And it's still there for centuries. So Pausanias, the great tour guide of the second century, AD, says he sees the kind of portrait. Themistocles' sons are invited back to live in Athens in all splendor. You know, kind of he's risen up as this hero. A tomb is built for him kind of in the Pereus. And then, of course, in the next decade,

the 430s through to the end of the 5th century, that will be when Athens is suddenly fighting the great Heliponnesian, Greek civil war. And what's going to become really helpful to the Athenians at that point? It's their city walls. Oh, who was? Oh, it was themistically. Yeah, what a great guy he was.

So suddenly the two moments that he then gets so well associated with, the fleet and the city walls, become these mythological kind of reasons for Athens' supremacy and survival. And so by the end of the fifth century, he is completely rehabilitated as a hero. And then that is reconfirmed, if you like,

in the following century, in the fourth century, when all of the Athenians, Athens has lost her empire, she's lost her walls, she's lost everything, and they heart back to these glory days of, you know,

great heroes like Themistocles. And there we have him. And that positive legacy of the Mastikles has, I mean, by and large, existed, endured down to the present day. I guess it's no surprise, then, when someone says the mystically, you will think immediately of Salamis, of being a hero of Athens,

and actually the story of him going to Persia, it's much less well known. Or, you know, making the absolutely obvious mistake of setting up a temple to his own brilliance in Athens. I mean, and doing all sorts of things where, you know, quite, when you look at it closely, he gets the decisions wrong as much as he gets the decisions right. and yet we've got this story that is so kind of preeminent of him. It's not like so Cicero, right?

We're a great Roman orator kind of thing. But when he's looking at history, he actually talks about the fact he's really puzzled by why Thomystocles has the reputation that he does, because, you know, why are the Athenians sort of honoring this guy

who did two things in two moments more than they're honoring people who created entire systems that benefited the Athenians for decades? So there are people who look at us and go, this is a bit odd, you know, kind of. But it is, it is an oddity that is explained by understanding what happens post

the Miskly's death and what the Athenians need and the heroes they need in the decades after he's died. Hashtag justice for Aristides. That's the reason. Michael, this has been absolutely brilliant. I'm guessing that's what you'd want

to leave the reader of your book. Thinking about the kind of the rises and the falls and, like, there is so much more to this figure's character. Yeah, I think, you know, particularly to this character, absolutely, seeing him in the round, seeing him as an individual, understanding the world that changed around him as he grew up, which actually made so much of what he did possible, alongside the extraordinary strokes of good luck he had. And the fact that even then, at the end of the day, his life, when it ends in Greece's persona on Grata, and it's that story afterwards, that kind of re-evaluation

and retelling of history that rises him up to becoming the great hero we know today. And as a result, to be both reassured that life is full of ups and downs, everyone's is, and reputations are a very odd and tricky thing indeed. Wise words to end this on. Michael, last but certainly not least, your book, all about the life and legend of the mysticles, it is called. The mysticles, the rise and fall, or rises and falls, rises and falls of Athens' naval statesman,

is out now with the OAWUroupie Press. Michael, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. It's great to be here. Thanks so much, Justin. Well, there you go. There was Professor Michael Scott talking through the story of Themistocles, his rises and falls. What a fascinating figure. Thank you so much for listening to the episode. Michael will be back in due course for a follow-up episode on another great story,

a place in ancient Greece, one of the most fascinating sanctuaries ever built in antiquity. that is to come in the near future. Can't wait to share that episode with you. But in the meantime, once again, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've been enjoying The Ancients, then please make sure you're following the show on Spotify or wherever you get to your podcasts.

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