Meanwhile there was much doubt and fear among the Greeks at Salamis. For a time indeed the captains talked privately the one with the other, marveling at the ill counsel of Eurybiades that he left the Peloponnese without defense; but at the last their discontent brake forth, and the assembly was called together, in which many things were said to the same purpose as in the former assembly, some affirming that they ought to sail away to the Peloponnese that they might defend it, it being a vain thing, they said, to remain at Salamis and fight for that which was already in the power of their enemies, and the men of Athens and of Ægina and of Megara being urgent that they should remain and give battle.
Then Themistocles, perceiving that his counsel should not prevail against the counsel of the men of the Peloponnese, went out secretly from the assembly, and sent straightway a messenger in a boat to the camp of the Persians. (The name of the messenger was Sicinnus, he was servant to Themistocles and tutor to his children; and after the war Themistocles caused him to become a citizen of Thespiæ, for the Thespians were admitting strangers to citizenship, and gave him great riches.) This Sicinnus therefore, going in a boat to the camp of the barbarians, spake to their captains, saying, “The commander of the Athenians has sent me, without the knowledge of the rest of the Greeks, to say that the Greeks are in great fear and purpose to fly from their place, and that ye have a great occasion of destroying them utterly, if only ye will not suffer them to escape. For indeed they are not of one mind, nor will they withstand you any more, but ye will see them fighting the one against the other, they that are on your side being opposed to them that are against you. And this my master does because he is a friend to the