For these would have hindered them from fighting in ships, yea, from so much as lifting up their hands against the enemy; and would have had them leave their country, and find some other wherein to dwell.
Before this, another counsel of this same Themistocles had been given excellently in season. It so chanced that the Athenians had much money in their public treasury, having received it from their mines at Laurium. This they were about to divide among the citizens, man by man, so that each should have ten drachmæ; but Themistocles persuaded the Athenians that this division should not be made, but that they should use the money for the building of two hundred ships for the war that they had on hand, that is to say, the war against Ægina. This war indeed it was that was the saving of Greece, for it compelled the Athenians to become seafaring men. As for the two hundred ships, they were not used for the end for the which they were made; but they were a help to Greece when she most needed them. So many ships had the Athenians ready before the war; and they began to build others. And now, after hearing the oracle and consulting thereupon, they judged it well to put their whole force on shipboard, even as the god commanded them; and so, together with such of the Greeks as were of the same mind, to give battle to the barbarians.
So soon as the Greeks that followed the good cause, even the cause of Greece, were assembled together, they took counsel and pledged their faith one to the other. This being done, they agreed in this, that, first of all, all feuds that there were of nation against nation should be appeased. Many such there were; but the greatest of all was that between the men of Athens and the men of Ægina. Afterward, when they knew that King Xerxes had come down to Sardis with his host, they thought it good to send spies to see how matters stood with the King in Asia; also they sent embassadors, some to Argos, to make an alliance against the Persians; and others to Sicily, to Gelon, lord of Syracuse; and to Corcyra, to ask for