T was born in obscurity to a poor father who was not even an Athenian (!), but came from an outlying village. T's ambitions and talents were such that he quickly ingratiated himself with Athenian aristocracy. Like many men of humble birth, he first made his mark in athletic contests, persuading some young aristocrats to join him at the wrestling ring at Cynosarges. T also began a rigorous course of study in rhetoric, philosophy, and politics in preparation for a political career that he dreamed of even as a child. While other young men studied more genteel arts, T pursued sagacity and wisdom. In later years when people joked at his inability to play the lute, he would retort that this was true, but that he had the ability to take any obscure city-state and make it glorious.
After completing his studies, T embarked on his political career, immediately aiming for the highest offices he could attain. T's greatest skill was in the art of persuasion, by which he moved the Athenian masses and aristocracy to accede to initiatives that were often inimical to their short-term benefit. T's earliest success came with his creation of Athens' naval power. Before T, Athens had been a land-based power focused on agriculture. While this served the insular Athenians well, T noted that the most powerful Greek city-state was Aegenita, which flourished through international trade and maintained military supremacy through its navy, rather than its army. T saw that Athens' future glory lay on the sea, rather than on the land. He also saw - in the post-Marathon era - that Athens could better defend itself on water than on land.
T was alone in trying to establish the Athenian navy. He had to overcome philosophical hurdles - the Old Guard saw Athens very character as defined by the land, and never forgave T for turning Athens to the sea - and practical: navies are expensive. To pay for the navy, T had to use the proceeds from Athens' silver mines, which had previously been distributed among the populace. T thus had to persuade the Athenians to sacrifice their annual silver payments for the seemingly ephemeral goal of obtaining naval supremacy for the sake of trade, rather than their preferred mode of rural living. He also had to persuade them to prepare to meet their rivals in war at sea, rather than on land, even though Athens greatest glories had been obtained in combat between standing armies.
It is a testament to T's political skills that he was able to accomplish all of this at a relatively young age. T was and remained a controversial figure in Athens after this. Many believed he had changed Athens' essential character by resorting to the ocean. T did not help matters through his own arrogant behavior. Throughout his life T enjoyed making great displays of his wealth, especially in public events such as the Olympics and the annual playwriting contests. This caused him to be the object of great envy and annoyance by persons at all levels of Athenian society, which did not bode well for his future prospects.
The invasion of Greece by Xerxes quickly brought T back to the fore in Athenian affairs. T was not a warrior, but he was a great war-time leader. On the one hand, T had to hold together a fractious coalition of Greek city-states, which often fought at cross purposes, and even made separate treaties with the Persians. On the other, he had to quell his own people, who became panicked with the increasing reports of sacked Greek cities drew closer, and who would have preferred to rush into action, rather than resort to the sea. T instead wanted the Athenians to abandon the city and escape to the island of Salamis, where he believed the navy would be better capable of fighting Xerxes on an equal footing. To persuade the Athenians to abandon
the city, T resorted to every stratagem in the realpolitik bag of tricks, including the manipulation of temple priests to suggest that the gods had already fled to Salamis. T also bribed certain of his naval commanders to keep his rag-tag navy together. While T's actions were inarguably necessary under the circumstances, they only added to his bad reputation, and came back to haunt him when peace returned.
The Athenians moved en masse to Salamis, and the Greek and Persian navies faced off in the narrow straights. The story of the Battle of Salamis with the smaller Greek ships sinking the much larger Persian ones while Xerxes watched from the heights is one of the great tales from the ancient world. But, while the Persians were defeated in battle, they did not lose the war at that time. Xerxes army still had the ability to ravage Greece. T wanted to send the navy to the Hellespont to destroy the Persians' bridge into Greece, but cooler heads pointed out that this would only make the Persians fight more desperately and destructively. Instead, the Greek's arranged to have a message "accidentally" fall into the hands of the Persians that would make them think this was the plan. When Xerxes heard that the bridge might be destroyed, he ordered a general retreat, rather than continue his costly invasion.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, T established the Athenian port of Piraeus and began construction of the wooden walls between Athens and the port. T also traveled around Greece assisting other city-states in the reconstruction of their defenses. He also took a leading role in the council of the Amphictyonians, where all of the city-states came together in a sort of pan-Greek assembly. While T was doing this, his leadership in Athens came under increased attack as his political enemies attacked T's ethics and governing style. T did not help matters by responding to these attacks by arrogantly reminding the Athenians of his past glories in an increasingly haughty manner.
Eventually, the Athenians voted to banish T, a common event in the careers of many of Athens' leading citizens. In T's case, his exile became permanent after he was falsely implicated in an obscure intrigue against the government. T made his way to Asia Minor, which was then ruled by the Persians, where T threw himself on the mercy of Xerxes (or Xerxes' son. Plutarch admits the historians were divided on this question), reminding him that - although he had led the Athenians in defeating the Persian invasion, he had also contrived the strategem that allowed the Persian army to escape. T had to use his entire bag of rhetorical devices, but they proved enough. The Persian king granted T the wealth of 5 cities as a show of gratitude for T's "service" to the Persians. The Athenians never forgave this, of course, and neither have classical historians.
T thus lived out his day in luxury and repose. The only condition was that he would have to assist the Persian king if the Greeks ever presented a problem in the future. T seems to have assured the king that he would do so. However, when the Greeks induced Egypt to rebel against Persian rule, the king came for T and demanded that T come to him to help strategize against the Greeks. Rather than submit to this order, and forever sully his name, T gathered his friends for one last meal, at the end of which he drank bull's blood (mmmmmm) and died a suicide. The king admired T even more after this and continued to support T's children and friends in a splendid manner.
As T was controversial in his lifetime, he was controversial in death. Plutarch relates several stories about the location of T's tomb. He states that the Persians T lived among erected a sepulchre in their main square, where T's progeny continued to live and prosper. Many in the ancient world believed that the Greeks had robbed the tomb and scattered T's aches, but Plutarch states that these stories were merely rhetorical flourishes inserted into Greek tragedies about T's sons. It was also widely believed that T was buried on a promontory overlooking Piraeus where he could overlook the teeming harbor of galleys and merchants whose very existence at that place was due to T's vision and leadership. Plutarch relates that this is told in the authoritative book on Tombs by Diodorus, but admits that it is a theory based on conjecture, not evidence. Plutarch also relates that the honors shown to T in Persia were still extant in his lifetime, such that an acquaintance of his from Athens - also named Themistocles - was able to take advantage of them.
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