Stesimbrotus on Miltiades and Themistocles

Abstract

Athenian politics in the three decades before the invasion of Xerxes have proved endlessly fascinating-and endlessly elusive. The fascination is intelligible. It was a pivotal period: Athens was overhauling her military structure to prepare for the Persian onslaught; Athenians were adjusting to and working out the implications of the Cleisthenic reforms; a new generation of politicians emerged with new elbowroom after the fall of the tyranny. But the elusive character of the political scene is inescapable. Information is tantalizingly fragmentary. It is precisely in the areas where we should like to know most that we generally know least. In no instance is this more striking than in our evidence on relations between Miltiades and Themistocles. One might expect that the tradition (whether genuine or fabricated) on contact between the heroes of Marathon and Salamis would be abundant. In fact, our ignorance is almost total. Historians, as is their wont, have plugged the gap with temptingly plausible reconstructions. Political parties have been ex humed from the fragmentary testimony (which does not mention them). One can frame a picture pitting aristocrats against democrats, or pro-Spartan against anti-Spartan groups; or discern a party still owing allegiance to the deposed tyrants; or postulate divisions based on foreign policy, between groups sympathetic or antipathetic to Persia. The possible combinations are bewildering. All have been advocated in some form; all have received the strictures of some scholar or another.1 It