Themistocles

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 7.11 §3 Themistocles did it

  The Athenian who in 480 BC persuaded Athens to abandon the city and meet the Persians at sea (Salamis); Pompey's defenders cite the precedent, but Cicero answers that the cases differ - Athens faced a barbarian flood, Rome does not.

• Ad Atticum 9.10 §3 Themistocles, who preferred to die

  Themistocles, the Athenian victor of Salamis, was later exiled and (in the tradition Cicero follows) chose suicide rather than lead Persia's forces against Greece. He is Cicero's model of the exile who refuses to war on his homeland, set against the traitor Hippias.

• Ad Atticum 10.8 §4 his whole plan is Themistoclean

  Themistocles, architect of the Athenian fleet at Salamis, held that whoever commands the sea commands the war; Cicero reads Pompey's whole strategy this way, expecting him to abandon Spain and Italy, build a great fleet, and return by sea. The naval doctrine "he who holds the sea holds the situation" is the heart of the analysis.

• Ad M. Brutum 1.15 §11 even the children of Themistocles were in want

  Themistocles (c. 524–459 BC), the Athenian general of Marathon and Salamis, was later ostracised and died in Persian exile; his children were reportedly left in poverty, a standard example in ancient rhetoric for the principle that a traitor's family shares the consequences of his guilt.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.104 Themistocles replied

  Themistocles, the Athenian statesman who masterminded the victory at Salamis (480 BC), was famed for his prodigious memory. When offered an art of memory he is said to have asked instead for an art of forgetting.

• On Duties §2.71 Themistocles

  The Athenian statesman (c. 524-459 BC), victor of Salamis; Cicero cites his reply that he would rather have a man who needs money than money that needs a man.