182 HISTORICAL TALES.

We have elsewhere told how he induced the
Athenians to build a fleet, and how this fleet, under
his shrewd management, defeated the great flotilla
of Xerxes and saved Greece from ruin and subjec-
tion. All that Themistocles did before and during
this war it is not necessary to state. It will suffice
here to say that he had no longer occasion to lose
sleep on account of the glory of Miltiades. He had
won a higher glory of his own; and’ in the end
ambition ruined him, as it had his great prede-
cessor.

To complete the tale of Themistocles we must
take up that of another of the heroes of Greece, the
Spartan Pausanias, the leader of the victorious army
at Platwa. He, too, allowed ambition to destroy
him. After taking the city of Byzantium, he fell in
love with Oriental luxury and grew to despise the
humble fare and rigid discipline of Sparta. He
offered to bring all Greece under the domain of
Persia if Xerxes would give him his daughter for
wife, and displayed such pompous folly and extrava-
gance that the Spartans ordered him home, where
he was tried for treason, but not condemned.

He afterwards conspired with some of the states
of Asia Minor, and when again brought home formed
@ plot with the Helots to overthrow the government.
His treason was discovered, and he fled to a temple
for safety, where he was kept till he starved to
death.

Thus ambition ended the careers of two of the
heroes of the Persian war. A third, Themistocles,
ended his career in similar disgrace. In fact, he