Themistokles: The First Historian Herodotus

Throughout history, there have been many famous traitors. From Cain and Judas, to Brutus, or Guy Fawkes, amongst many more. Some of these traitors may tell you it was for the good of the world that they committed treason. Which leads to the question, are they right? A much larger question, if so when is treason just? The first Historian Herodotus tells the tale of Themistokles, an Athenian general during the Persian War. In these stories, readers see Themistokles as he acts behind the backs of those who trust him, seemingly committing treason, and placing the Greeks into precarious positions. Was what Themistokles doing wrong? Not entirely. The treasons of Themistokles were just, when they were for the sake of others. Purposefully fooling his fellow Greeks for their own sakes was just. One of earliest encounters with Themistokles was him bribing his fellow Greeks with “a bribe of thirty talents to make the Hellenes remain [on Euboea]” (8.5.2). By the fact that Themistokles was trusted with the money from the Euboeans shows that he is held in high regard by many. It naturally falls that if he were not considered so, he would not have been given a job that if failed, would

He became a greedy extortionist, who later was made a fugitive from Athens and fled to Persia. That does not change the fact, however, that Themistokles saved the Greeks multiple times. He acted on his own will, but many times it was for the sake of his fellow Greek man. This does not excuse what he did, but it does require him to be looked at in a different light. Nothing in the world is black and white, and one person can not be analyzed solely by what they did towards the end of their lives. Much like how Solon tells Croesus how the life of a man cannot be fully judged until his death (1.32), the life of a man cannot be taken solely by one part of their life. Through this view, one can truly see whether or not a man actions in life can be considered