Life of Themistocles, 32

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32Themistocles left three sons by Archippé, the daughter of Lysander, of the deme Alopecé, namely: Archeptolis, Polyeuctus and Cleophantus, the last of whom Plato the philosopher mentions as a capital horseman, but good for nothing else.[30] One of his two oldest sons, Neocles, died in boyhood from the bite of a horse, and Diocles was adopted by his grandfather Lysander. 2He had several daughters, of whom Mnesiptolema, born of his second wife, became the wife of Archeptolis her half-brother, Italia of Panthoides the Chian, and Sybaris of Nicomedes the Athenian. Nicomaché was given in marriage by her brothers to Phrasicles, the nephew of Themistocles, who sailed to Magnesia after his uncle’s death, and who also took charge of Asia, the youngest of all the children.

3The Magnesians have a splendid tomb of Themistocles in their market place; and with regard to his remains, Andocides is worthy of no attention when he says, in his Address to his Associates, that the Athenians stole away those remains and scattered them abroad, for he is trying by his lies to incite the oligarchs against the people; and Phylarchus, too, when, as if in a tragedy, he all but erects a theatrical machine for this story, and brings into the action a certain Neocles, forsooth, and Demopolis, sons of Themistocles, wishes merely to stir up tumultuous emotion; his tale even an ordinary person must know is fabricated. 4Diodorus the Topographer, in his work “On Tombs,” says, by conjecture rather than from actual knowledge, that near the large harbour of the Piraeus a sort of elbow juts out from the promontory opposite Alcimus, and that as you round this and come inside where the water of the sea is still, there is a basement of goodly size, and that the altar-like structure upon this is the tomb of Themistocles. 5And he thinks that the comic poet Plato is a witness in favour of his view when he says:—

“Thy tomb is mounded in a fair and sightly place;

The merchantmen shall ever hail it with glad cry;

It shall behold those outward, and those inward bound,

And all the emulous rivalry of racing ships.”

For the lineal descendants of Themistocles there were also certain dignities maintained in Magnesia down to my time, and the revenues of these were enjoyed by a Themistocles of Athens, who was my intimate and friend in the school of Ammonius the philosopher.

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