At the port of Piraeus, the triremes employed by the ancient Athenians had to be periodically beached to dry, their wooden hulls otherwise susceptible to water rot. The quaintness of such a problem poignantly conveys the almost unbridgeable distance between the world of Themistocles and our own. And yet, for how far-off such a problem seems, one can similarly imagine a space-faring race of humans, thousands of years into the future, looking back at the world today, struggling to comprehend the quaintness of the problems bedeviling humanity in 2026.
This recognition of ourselves as judges of the past yet also subject to judgment by future historians is what makes the study of history so meaningful; in understanding our own small role in history, we gain perspective and humility, but also a greater appreciation of the human condition by grasping the universal, unchanging elements of life, from ancient Greece to the present. Such universal themes abound in Michael Scott’s biography of Athens’s famed admiral and statesman Themistocles: The Rise and Fall of Athens’s Naval Mastermind. His account touches on such themes as the striving of ambitious outsiders to transcend their unremarkable beginnings; the role of geostrategy in the shaping of world history; democratic politics and the role of navies specifically in leveling the political playing field (still to be true of starship navies?); and of coalitional politics, both within and across polities. Perhaps the most salient theme, however, is the threat that democratic love of equality poses to truly great men.
The biography, while focused on Themistocles, is really the story of Athens in its transition from tyranny to a polity governed by archons drawn from the class of landowning men, and of Greece more broadly before, during, and immediately following the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC). Themistocles, we learn, was born “of a good family” according to first-century biographer Cornelius Nepos—his father having been “not one of the particularly distinguished men at Athens” (Plutarch) but certainly not poor either.
In 493/2 BC, Themistocles became archon, one of Athens’ prestigious, annually selected offices. It was at this point that Themistocles played a role in convincing the Athenians to enlarge and fortify their port at Piraeus, a move that would prove significant in countering future Persian invasions. But besides its military applications, Athens’s shifting its resources towards a more naval-intensive strategy had equalizing political and social ramifications. While the cavalry was an intrinsically aristocratic group since horses were expensive, and infantry (hoplites) represented the middle class since armor and a shield were still somewhat cost-prohibitive, being a rower on a ship required nothing but a strong body.
In 490 BC, the Athenians effectively ended the first Persian invasion of Greece at the Battle of Marathon, a victory the Athenians considered themselves to have won collectively and not due to the leadership of any single man—something deeply disappointing to Themistocles, who considered himself to have played a key role. The Athenians, after having been ruled by tyrants for so long, became allergic to even the idea of “great men” assuming leading roles in the fledgling republic. This theme would further intensify with the first use of ostracism beginning in 488/487 BC, where the Athenians would annually vote to exile someone for 10 years if they were perceived to have some connection to the Persians or the tyrants who once ruled Athens, but also if they were thought to be too powerful. In 487/486 BC, as well, the Athenians ceased holding elections for archonship and instead opted to select politicians by lot from a preselected pool, precluding the powerful from monopolizing politics by default. Athens is often held as the symbol of democratic self-governance; this episode reminds readers of its serious and at times nigh-tyrannical excesses.
Despite his many contributions to his country, Themistocles was eventually himself ostracized from Athens for seeming too self-important before the demos.
With the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, Themistocles would again have an opportunity for greatness. But before that, in 483 BC, an enormous seam of silver was discovered near Athens—a treasure which Themistocles successfully persuaded the Athenians to spend by building 200 triremes (warships with three banks of oars). Themistocles commanded the Athenian fleet at the battles of Artemisium and later Salamis, where Athens contributed the lion’s share of warships. At both Artemisium and Salamis, Themistocles purposely chose narrow straits where the Persians’ numerical superiority could not be put to effective use, an approach reminiscent of the Greek strategy on land at the Battle of Thermopylae a month prior. But besides geography, Themistocles also utilized both bribery and deception to keep the Greek fleet together, it being composed of a number of cities that at any moment could break off if they thought their interests were not being met.
On the eve of Salamis, the key naval battle that would turn the Persians back, Themistocles knew that a significant number of Greeks were likely to flee. In order to prevent this, he made an audacious gamble: Themistocles sent a messenger to the Persians informing them that the Greeks intended to leave the straits of Salamis before the battle started, urging them to encircle the Greek position, thus forcing a confrontation, presenting himself as a traitor to the Greeks. His plan worked perfectly: the next day, the Greek fleet stayed together and won a decisive victory against the Persians. In the end, Themistocles was as responsible as anyone for the preservation of Greece against Persia.
And yet, instead of Themistocles’ victory at Salamis consummating his rise to the top of Athenian politics and society, the tyrannophobia of the Athenians precluded him from accruing too much power. While Themistocles did come to play a leading role in the rebuilding of Athens’ walls and the continued improvement of its port at Piraeus, these advantages were to be short-lived. The most interesting section of this latter part of the book is the dynamic between Athens and Sparta over the rebuilding of Athens’ walls, which had been destroyed by the Persians. The Spartans regarded Athens’s strong walls as a means of ensuring itself as the dominant power in Greece, since it would be nearly invulnerable to ground invasion while simultaneously having the largest Greek fleet. This Spartan-Athenian dispute exemplifies how modern debates over issues like NATO expansion and Russian aggression have ancient parallels: defensive measures can always be interpreted, sincerely or cynically, as offensive threats.
Despite his many contributions to his country, Themistocles was eventually himself ostracized from Athens for seeming too self-important before the demos—something made easier by the many elite Athenians he had gained as rivals in his meteoric rise. To make matters worse, during his ten years of exile, the Athenians learned that Themistocles was indirectly implicated in a pro-Persian plot, leading them to try him in absentia and sentence him to death. Themistocles, ironically, ends his life in the court of Artaxerxes I of Persia, whose father he played a leading role in defeating.
Themistocles: The Rise and Fall of Athens’s Naval Mastermind provides a fascinating case study of one from a non-elite background who, recognizing his society’s transformation to a more democratic governing structure, decisively took advantage of the opportunity to advance himself. Athens’s democratic fervor did not abate and instead would ultimately consume Themistocles as well. In this way, it is a familiar tragedy of a man who could not, despite all of his ambition and cunning, transcend the circumstances of his birth.
Michael Scott has written a broad and, at times, colorful synopsis of the period Herodotus writes about in his Histories as well as the first part of Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. For readers new to ancient Greek history, the scale of events covered by Scott in his compact biography may be hard to follow—while centered on Themistocles, it is really the story of Athens and Greece over about seven decades, refracted through one individual. Yet regardless of where readers are coming from, they are sure to connect with something in Themistocles, as is the nature of the classics.
