Cornelius Nepos, Lives

CHAPTER VII.

1. BUT THEMISTOCLES, when he arrived at Lacedaemon, refused to approach the magistrates, and made an effort to drag out the time as long as possible, interposing the excuse that he was waiting for his colleagues, while the Lacedaemonians complained that the work was being done nonetheless and that he was attempting to deceive them in the matter. 2. In the meantime, the remaining ambassadors arrived. When he heard from them that not much of the fortifications remained, he approached the ephors the chief magistrates of Sparta of the Lacedaemonians, in whom supreme power resided, and contended before them that false reports had been brought to them; that it was therefore fair to send good and noble men, in whom trust could be placed, to investigate the matter; and that in the meantime, they should keep him as a hostage. 3. His request was granted, and three ambassadors, who had held the highest honors, were sent to Athens. Themistocles ordered his colleagues to set out with them, and warned them not to release the Lacedaemonian ambassadors before he himself had been sent back. 4. After he thought that they had arrived in Athens, he went to the magistrate and senate of the Lacedaemonians and declared very freely before them: that the Athenians, by his counsel, which they were able to do by the common law of nations, had enclosed their public gods and their own ancestral ones and household gods with walls, so that they could more easily defend them from the enemy; and that in doing so, they had done nothing that was useless to Greece. 5. For their city was a bulwark set against the barbarians, at which the royal fleets had already twice suffered shipwreck. 6. But the Lacedaemonians were acting wickedly and unjustly in considering what was useful to their own domination rather than what was useful to all of Greece. Therefore, if they wished to receive their own ambassadors whom they had sent to Athens, they should send him back, otherwise they would never receive them home.