A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER XVII
THE DELIAN CONFEDERACY AND THE ATHENIAN
EMPIRE
I. The Walls of Athens are Rebuilt
Immediately after the great war, he (Themistocles) began
to rebuild and fortify the city.
In order to succeed in
this, Theopompus says that he bribed the Spartan ephors
into laying aside opposition, but most writers say that he
outwitted them by proceeding to Sparta nominally on an
embassy. Then when the Spartans complained to him that
Athens was being fortified and when Poliarchus came expressly
from ^gina to charge him with it, he denied it, and
bade them send commissioners to Athens to see whether it
was true, wishing both to obtain time for the fortifications
to be built, and also to place these commissioners in the
hands of the Athenians, as hostages for his own safety.
His expectations were realised; for the Lacedaemonians,
on discovering the truth, did him no harm, but dissembled
anger and sent him away. After this he built Peirasus
as he perceived the excellence of its harbors, and was
desirous to turn the whole attention of the Athenians to
naval pursuits. . . . Themistocles did not " stick Peiraeus
on to Athens" as Aristophanes the comic poet said,
so much as he made the city dependent upon Peiraeus,
and the land dependent upon the sea. By this means he
transferred power from the nobles to the people, because
sailors and pilots became the real strength of the state.
175
Themistocles
outwits
the
Spartans.
Plutarch,
Themistocles,
ig.
Greece, 143-5;
Ancient
World, 182 f.
Theopompus
was a historian
who
lived in the
fourth century
B.C.
He builds
Peiraeus.