11.42.6Consequently, when the Council learned all the details and decided that what he said was for the advantage of the state and was feasible, the people, without more ado, agreed with the Council, and Themistocles received authority to do whatever he wished. And every man departed from the Assembly in admiration of the high character of the man, being also elated in spirit and expectant of the outcome of the plan.
ch. 43
11.43.1Themistocles, having received authority to proceed and enjoying every assistance ready at hand for his undertakings, again conceived a way to deceive the Lacedaemonians by a stratagem; for he was fully assured that just as the Lacedaemonians had interfered with the building of the wall about the city, they would in the same manner endeavour to obstruct the plans of the Athenians in the case of the making of the harbour.
11.43.2Accordingly he decided to dispatch ambassadors to the Lacedaemonians to show them how it was to the advantage of the common interests of Greece that it should possess a first-rate harbour in view of the expedition which was to be expected on the part of the Persians. When he had in this way somewhat dulled the impulse of the Spartans to interfere, he devoted himself to that work, and since everybody enthusiastically co-operated it was speedily done and the harbour was finished before anyone expected.
11.43.3And Themistocles persuaded the people each year to construct and add twenty triremes to the fleet they already possessed, and also to remove the tax upon metics and artisans, in order that great crowds of people might stream into the city from every quarter and that the Athenians might easily procure labour for a greater number of crafts. Both these policies he considered to be most useful in building up the city's naval forces. The Athenians, therefore, were busy over the matters we have described.
ch. 44
11.44.1The Lacedaemonians, having appointed Pausanias, who had held the command at Plataea, admiral of their fleet, instructed him to liberate the Greek cities which were still held by barbarian garrisons.
11.44.2And taking fifty triremes from the Peloponnesus and summoning from the Athenians thirty commanded by Aristeides, he first of all sailed to Cyprus and liberated those cities which still had Persian garrisons;
11.44.3and after this he sailed to the Hellespont and took Byzantium, which was held by the Persians, and of the other barbarians some he slew and others he expelled, and thus liberated the city, but many important Persians whom he captured in the city he turned over to Gongylus of Eretria to guard. Ostensibly Gongylus was to keep these men for punishment, but actually he was to get them off safe to Xerxes; for Pausanias had secretly made a pact of friendship with the king and was about to marry the daughter of Xerxes, his purpose being to betray the Greeks.
11.44.4The man who was acting as negotiator in this affair was the general Artabazus, and he was quietly supplying Pausanias with large sums of money to be used in corrupting such Greeks as could serve their ends.
The plan of Pausanias, however, was brought to light and he got his punishment in the following manner.
11.44.5For Pausanias emulated the luxurious life of the Persians and dealt with his subordinates in the manner of a tyrant, so that they were all angry with him, and especially those Greeks who had been assigned to some command.
11.44.6Consequently, while many, as they mingled together in the army both by peoples and by cities, were railing at the harshness of Pausanias, some Peloponnesians note deserted him and sailed back to the Peloponnesus, and dispatching ambassadors to Sparta they lodged an accusation against Pausanias; and Aristeides the Athenian, making wise use of the opportunity, in the course of his public conferences with the states won them over and by his personal intimacy with them made them adherents of the Athenians. note But even more did matters play by mere chance into the hands of the Athenians by reason of the following facts.
ch. 45
11.45.1Pausanias had stipulated that the men who carried the messages from him to the king should not return and thus become betrayers of their secret communications; consequently, since they were being put to death by the receivers of the letters, no one of them was ever returning alive.
11.45.2So one of the couriers, reasoning from this fact, opened his letters, and discovering that his inference was correct as to the killing of all who carried the messages, he turned the letters over to the ephors.
11.45.3But when the ephors were loath to believe this, because the letters had been turned over to them already opened, and demanded further and more substantial proof, the man offered to produce Pausanias acknowledging the facts in person.
