| #### CHAPTER 143 |

| #### #### Now there was at Athens a man who had lately made his way into the first rank of citizens: his true name was Themistocles; but he was known more generally as the son of Neocles. This man came forward and said that the interpreters had not explained the oracle altogether aright - "for if," he argued, "the clause in question had really respected the Athenians, it would not have been expressed so mildly; the phrase used would have been 'Luckless Salamis,' rather than 'Holy Salamis,' had those to whom the island belonged been about to perish in its neighbourhood. Rightly taken, the response of the god threatened the enemy, much more than the Athenians." He therefore counselled his countrymen to make ready to fight on board their ships, since they were the wooden wall in which the god told them to trust. When Themistocles had thus cleared the matter, the Athenians embraced his view, preferring it to that of the interpreters. The advice of these last had been against engaging in a sea-fight; "all the Athenians could do," they said, "was, without lifting a hand in their defence, to quit Attica, and make a settlement in some other country." ####  |