And when he grew up, and was studying philosophy with a tutor, he knew more about politics and the affairs of the day than he did of his studies, which was a great disappointment to his father and mother.

In fact at that time Themistocles gave them much trouble, for he was rather inclined to be wild and extravagant, and they thought that if he would only leave politics alone, everything would be all right again. One day his father pointed out some worn-out warships that were rotting away in the docks, and told him that that was the fate in store for him if he became a statesman. "The Athenian people will work you very hard," he said, "and take all they can out of you, and then, when you can be of use to them no longer, they will leave you alone to die." But it was of no use for his father or any one else to talk like this to Themistocles, for nothing in the world interested him but politics, and just then in Athens very exciting things were happening.

When Themistocles was about fourteen years old, the Athenians had helped their kinsmen on the Asiatic shore of the Mediterranean Sea to fight against King Darius of Persia; and though they did not win in the end, they did much harm to Darius's dominions, and burned the great city of Sardis before they returned home.

This made Darius very angry indeed, but he was too busy just then to follow the Athenians home and avenge the insult. Yet, so that he should not forget his anger against them, he ordered one of his slaves to say to him every day at dinner, "Sire, remember the Athenians." Atossa, his wife, constantly, urged him to go against the Athenians, for she wanted Greek women for her slaves, as she had heard that they were very beautiful.

But eight years passed away before Darius found time to do anything. Then at last he called a very clever general to him, named Mardonius, and told him to make ready to go to war with the Athenians.

Now, if you look at the map, you will see the country through which Mardonius led his soldiers after he had crossed the Hellespont. It was a wild and barbarous country, in which lived savage and warlike tribes. Mardonius had ordered his ships to meet him after sailing round the point of Mount Athos (which you will see in the map).

But a dreadful storm arose, three hundred ships were almost all wrecked, and the twenty thousand men they carried were drowned near the rocky coast, which was as dangerous as many parts of the coast in the north of Scotland. And when the barbarian tribes heard of this, they attacked Mardonius's army, and destroyed more than half of it. So poor Mardonius lost heart, and felt that it would be wiser on the whole to go back to Persia.

Back he went, and for nearly two years after Persia was full of the hurry and bustle of preparing to make war on the Greeks. At last King Darius sent off heralds to each Greek city to ask the people for earth and water. You will think this a very funny thing for him to ask, but if the Greeks gave the earth and water, it meant that they would agree to Darius ruling them on land and sea. Many of the States were so frightened that they gave earth and water at once.

But you may be sure that Athens was not one of these. There the people caught hold of the herald and threw him into a deep hole, where, they said, he could get earth and water for himself. And they told all their soldiers to make ready for war. Just think how excited Themistocles must have felt when he came out of his philosophy class one day, and heard that in that deep hole in the quarry near by, into which he had loved to throw stones when he was a child, the enemy's herald had been thrown that morning.

You may be sure he delivered a fine speech to his fellow-students, which was so fiery that they all took sides for or against the Persian invader. Themistocles and another, Aristeides (besides others whose names I need not tell you), went off to the war under Miltiades, the great Greek general, for they agreed with him that they ought to fight at once, for fear the friends of Persia in Athens would open the city gates and let the enemy march in.

Out on a hill above the plain of Marathon gathered that brave little Greek army, looking down on the great host of the Persians between them and the sea.

For four or five days they awaited the attack of the Persians, but in vain: and so Miltiades himself decided to attack. All the fighting men of the little town of Platae had joined him (in gratitude for past kindnesses received from Athens), and his force now numbered between ten and eleven thousand. After arranging them in the best way possible for so small a force, he ordered them to start at a run down the hill towards the enemy.

The Persians either did not expect them, or thought that so small an army would never be so mad as to charge their large forces, and were far from ready to oppose them. They soon learned, however, to their cost, that if the Greeks were mad, there was a method in their madness, when the line of pikes charged into them with a great force gained by their run of a mile downhill. Both sides of the Persian army broke away in disorder, and were routed; but the Greek centre, which was their weakest part, would have been beaten had not the Greeks at the right and left come to the rescue. Even then there was a desperate struggle on the beach before the Persians were all driven into the sea or to their ships, and the field of, Marathon was won.

This was one of the songs they sang in Athens after the battle, when every one was so happy that even the friends of Persia were quiet, and pretended to be glad too. But some of Themistocles' friends noticed that he was keeping away from the feasts that were held in honour of the victory, and that he was growing pale and looking ill. He did not attend to his studies any more, but went about alone, and would not talk to anybody.

At last a friend stopped him in the street one day, and said: "What is the matter with you, Themistocles? Are you ill? You have not been to the club nor to the philosophy class for several days, and we are quite dull without you to make us speeches." Themistocles grew very red, and after a little said: "I cannot sleep for thinking of the trophies Miltiades has won." "Go and win some yourself," said the other; and Themistocles took his advice. From that time forward he was never absent from the public council.

Athens was at war just then with the island of Aegina, and Themistocles advised the Athenians to build a great many ships, so as to conquer Aegina the more easily, as he said. But in the back of his mind he had another plan. He felt sure that Darius, the Persian king, would come back some day soon to try to conquer the Athenians, and this time he would not bring his army by land only, but would bring a great many ships as well. And he thought if the Greeks had two or three hundred ships in readiness, they might win another glorious victory.

But his old schoolfellow, Aristeides, who had gone with him to fight at Marathon, thought him quite wrong in this, and believed that the Athenians had better not waste their money in building so many ships. So whenever spoke in the Assembly in favour of the proposal, Aristeides used to oppose him. Aristeides was not nearly so clever or wise as Themistocles, but he was a much better man. He had never grieved his parents, nor been wild and extravagant, and he was always so fair to every one that men called him "Aristeides the Just," and trusted him a great deal. He had never done anything of which he needed to be ashamed, whereas Themistocles had often done acts that were dishonourable, and was not always as careful of the people's money as he should have been. Then he sometimes told lies, and gave people bribes to do what he wanted, whether it was right or not. But he could never bribe Aristeides; and as Aristeides was always against him when he tried to get a larger navy for Athens, he at last grew very angry with him, and the two quarrelled so badly that every one grew tired of listening to them.

The Athenians had a plan for getting rid of people of whom they were tired, and they chose this way now. They all came into the city one day, and the clerks of the Council gave each of them an oyster shell, on which they were to write the name of the man they wanted to send out of the city. Then they dropped their shells into a large vase that stood near for the purpose. More than six thousand of them on this day wrote the name of Aristeides on their shells. After the clerks had counted the shells, Aristeides was told he must leave the city.

This voting by oyster-shells was called Ostracism, and Aristeides was said to be ostracised. He had to leave the city for ten years, and take no share in its doings all that time. Aristeides loved his country so dearly that this was a very cruel punishment to him, for he knew quite well that once he was out of the way, Themistocles would easily persuade the people to make a great navy; and this was just what happened. But in this matter Themistocles was right, and it was best for Athens, as you will see, that Aristeides should be sent away just then.

For across the Mediterranean King Darius of Persia was not sleeping all this time, but was very busy indeed. Furious that a small city like Athens should have defeated his large army, he made up his mind to make ready a larger army and a bigger fleet, and to sail against Athens again. Themistocles knew of all this, and never tired of telling the people of the use of a large fleet, and that Athens must become the "Mistress of the Seas"; until the Athenians believed it so thoroughly that they thought they had always wanted this.

And when they had the best of it in the Aeginetan War, they felt sure that Themistocles was right, though Darius died, and so ended their fear that he would come again. But his son Xerxes continued to prepare for war against the Greeks, and at last the report came across the sea that he had left home with a very large army and fleet.

Xerxes was a foolish king, and had been so spoiled in his childhood that he often behaved like a big baby. When he could not get across the Hellespont in his bridge of boats because of a great storm, he flew into a rage, and ordered his servants to thrash the sea for being so rough. At last, however, he crossed the Hellespont, and then marched through wild country towards Greece. The Greeks on their side were preparing to fight him.

Leonidas, King of Sparta, met him in the narrow pass of Thermopylae (which is on the Malian Gulf, in your map) with seven thousand men against the Persian myriads. Xerxes was very angry because Leonidas and his men did not run away, but combed their long curls and practised many gymnastic exercises, as if the enemy were not there at all.

"Are they mad," he cried, "that they do not run away or surrender?"

"Nay, sire," said an exiled Spartan who was with him, "they always comb their hair very carefully before a big battle. They have determined to fight to the death."

After a time Xerxes sent some troops against them, to take them alive and bring them before him. But the Spartans soon showed that they could fight as well as they could curl their hair. There was room for a few only to fight at a time, and they fearlessly cut down the Persians who came against them time after time, until one set grew tired and another took its place. For two days this terrible fight went on, till the Persians were so frightened that their captains had to drive them into the fight with whips.

On the second night a dreadful thing happened. A treacherous Greek of the neighbourhood, who wanted to grow very rich, went to Xerxes, and said that if he were given a large sum of money, he would show him a path over the mountains which would bring him in at the back of brave Leonidas and his men. Xerxes was only too glad to give him as much gold as he asked, and sent soldiers over the mountain path with this traitor as their guide.

But they did not attack Leonidas until noon next day, and he had many friends who came to warn him that the enemy had found the path at his back. He called his captains, and held a council of war, and decided that, in obedience to Spartan laws, he must stay and fight it out, even though he was sure to be killed. He kept with him three hundred Spartans, and seven hundred Thespians who said nothing would make them leave him, and four hundred Boeotians whom he could not trust out of his sight, and sent all the rest of his army away.

Then there was nothing for it but to fight till they fell, and this they did, each one killing many Persians or hurling them over the steep cliffs into the sea below, before they fell themselves, covered with glorious wounds. Leonidas fell in the thick of the fight "on the field of honour."

And over the spot where he fell a great marble lion was placed, after the war was over, and two other monuments, on one of which were carved these lines, which a great poet of that time had written:

I think I hear you asking: "But where was Themistocles all this time? Why did he not come to help Leonidas? Was he afraid?"

He was fighting the Persians somewhere further south. You must remember that the Persians came not only overland, but with many ships too. Fortunately for the Greeks a tremendous storm, which raged for three days and three nights, did so much harm to the enemy's ships that four hundred of them were destroyed, many men drowned, and much and many stores lost. The coast almost in sight of Thermopylae was covered with the wreckage of boats, and with dead bodies, and Themistocles, like the other Greeks, was glad at this news.

But he knew that even after losing four hundred ships the Persian fleet would still be much larger than that of the Greeks. So he was not surprised, as the other Greeks were, when they saw on the morning after the storm a very large fleet off the north of the long island of Euboea. They wanted to sail away at once down the coast of Euboea to Chalcis to take shelter. Themistocles tried hard to persuade them to stay where they were and fight; and the people in the island heard this, and sent him a very large present of money, so that he should keep the Greek fleet off the north of the island. You noticed before that Themistocles was not very particular about taking money or giving it, if he could get his own way by so doing; so he thanked the islanders, and gave presents to all the other admirals, if they promised to stay there and fight.

They promised; in those days most Greeks would do anything for money (and this was the worst point in the Greek character), but they did not begin the fight till the evening. Then they fought very bravely for some time, but just when they were beginning to get the worst of it, it grew so dark that they had to stop the battle for that night.

Strange to tell, during that night too arose a great wind, which dashed the Persian ships about so much that many were wrecked altogether, and others so much damaged that they could not fight next day. By the day after the Persians had patched up their ships, and began to fight again. The battle lasted all day, till the poor Greeks were so battered that even Themistocles thought they must escape southwards down the channel between the long island of Euboea and the mainland. But he would not have been Themistocles if he had not played a trick by the way.

In the fleet of the Persians were the Ionian Greeks, who lived across the Mediterranean Sea, and were servants of the Persian King. For their benefit Themistocles wrote up in very large letters near every well all along the cliffs: "Let all the Ionians desert the Persians and help the Greeks; or at least throw the Persian fleet out of order after the battle begins." Of course he knew that the Ionians were too weak and too much afraid of Xerxes to do anything of the kind, but he thought it would make Xerxes uneasy if he saw this writing, as he was sure to do.