288 fflSTORY OF GREECE. of poison voluntarily taken, from painful consciousness on the part of Themistokles himself that the promises made could never be performed, — a farther proof of the general tendency to surround the last years of this distinguished man with impressive adven- tures, and to dignify his last moments with a revived feeling, not unworthy of his earlier patriotism. The report may possibly have been designedly circulated by his friends and relatives, in order to conciliate some tenderness towards his memory (his sons still continued citizens at Athens, and his daughters were married there). These friends farther stated that they had brought back his bones to Attica, at his own express command, and buried them privately without the knowledge of the Athenians ; no con- demned traitor being permitted to be buried in Attic soil. If, however, we even suppose that this statement was true, no one could point out with certainty the spot wherein such inter- ment had taken place : nor does it seem, when we mark the cautious expressions of Thucydides,i that he himself was satis- fied of the fact : moreover, we may affirm with confidence that the inhabitants of Magnesia, when they showed the splendid se- pulchral monument erected in honor of Themistokles in their own market-jilace, were persuaded that his bones were really inclosed within it. Aristeides died about three or four years after the ostracism of Themistokles ; 2 but respecting the place and manner of his death, ' Thucyd. i, 138. tu 6e oard <jt a a I k ofiiad^ ^v a i avrov oi izpoarj- Kovreg o i K a 6 e n eA ev c av t g k k eiv ov , kol TS'&fjvaL Kpv^a 'A-&71- vaiuv iv rfi 'Attikti ■ ov yup i^r/v ■^utztelv, wf iTvl 7rpo6o<jia ^evyovTog. Cornelius Nepos, who here copies Thucydides, gives this statement by mistake, as if Thucydides had himself affirmed it : " Idem (sc. Thucydides) ossa ejus clam in Attica ab amicis sepulta, qnoniam legibus non concedere- tur, quod proditionis esset damnatus, memoriae prodidit." This shows the haste or inaccuracy with which these secondary authors so often cite : Thu- cydides is certainly not a witness /or the fact : if anything, he may be said to count somewhat against it. Plutarch (Themist. c. 32) shows that the burial-place of Themistokles, supposed to be in Attica, was yet never verified before his time : the guides of Pausanias, however, in the succeeding century, had become more confi- dent (Pausanias, i, 1, 3). ^ Respecting the probity of Aristeides, see an interesting fragment of Eupolis, the comic writer (A^yoi, Pragm, iv, p. 457, ed. Meineke).
