Themistocles (18.4-18.5)

Again, when one of his fellow-generals who thought he had done some vast service to the city, grew bold with Themistocles, and began to compare his own services with his, With the Festival-day, said he, the Day After once began a contention, saying: Thou art full of occupations and wearisome, but when I come, all enjoy at their leisure what has been richly provided beforehand; to which the Festival-day replied: True, but had I not come first, thou hadst not come at all. So now, said he, had I not come at that day of Salamis, where would thou and thy colleagues be now?

Of his son, who lorded it over his mother, and through her over himself, he said, jestingly, that the boy was the most powerful of all the Hellenes; for the Hellenes were commanded by the Athenians, the Athenians by himself, himself by the boy’s mother, and the mother by her boy. Again, with the desire to be somewhat peculiar in all that he did, when he offered a certain estate for sale, he bade proclamation to be made that it had an excellent neighbor into the bargain. Of two suitors for his daughter’s hand, he chose the likely man in preference to the rich man, saying that he wanted a man without money rather than money without a man. Such were his striking sayings.