XXIII.  When Themistokles was banished from Athens, he lived in Argos, during which time the proceedings of Pausanias gave a great opportunity to his enemies.  He was impeached on a charge of treason by Leobotes, the son of Alkmaeon of Agraulai, and the Spartans joined in the impeachment.  Pausanias, indeed, at first concealed his treacherous designs from Themistokles, although he was his friend; but when he saw that Themistokles was banished, and chafing at the treatment he had received, he was encouraged to ask him to share his treason, and showed him the letters which he had received from the Persian king, at the same time inflaming his resentment against the Greeks, whom he spoke of as ungrateful wretches.  Themistokles refused utterly to join Pausanias, but nevertheless told no one of his treasonable practices, either because he hoped that he would desist, or that his visionary and impossible projects would be disclosed by other means.  And thus it was that when Pausanias was put to death, certain letters and writings on this subject were found, which threw suspicion upon Themistokles.  The Lacedaemonians loudly condemned him, and many of his own countrymen, because of the enmity they bore him, brought charges against him.  He did not appear in person at first, but answered these attacks by letters.  In these he told his accusers that he had always sought to rule, and was not born to obey; so that he never would sell himself and Greece to be a slave to the Persians.  But in spite of these arguments, his enemies prevailed upon the Athenians to send men with orders to seize him, and bring him to be tried by Greece.

XXIV.  He was apprised of this in time to take refuge in Korkyra, a State which was under obligations to him.  For once, when Korkyra was at variance with Corinth, he had been chosen to arbitrate between them, and had reconciled them, giving as his award that the Corinthians were to pay down twenty talents, and each State to have an equal share in the city and island of Leucas, as being a colony from both of them.  From thence he fled to Epirus; but, being still pursued by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, he adopted a desperate resolution.  Admetus, the king of the Molossians, had once made some request to the Athenians, which Themistokles, who was then in the height of his power, insultingly refused to grant.  Admetus was deeply incensed, and eager for vengeance; but now Themistokles feared the fresh fury of his countrymen more than this old grudge of the king’s, put himself at his mercy, and became a suppliant to Admetus in a novel and strange fashion; for he lay down at the hearth of Admetus, holding that prince’s infant son, which is considered among the Molossians to be the most solemn manner of becoming a suppliant, and one which cannot be refused.  Some say that Phthia, the king’s wife, suggested this posture to Themistokles, and placed her infant on the hearth with him; while others say that Admetus, in order to be able to allege religious reasons for