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Expedia Narrator
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Michael Scott
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Michael Scott
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Paul Stereman
I'm gonna need you to sign this.
- [01:16]
Michael Scott
Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again. If anyone found out monolips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder man all eight episodes now streaming only on Disney.
- [01:31]
Paul Stereman
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everyone, I'm Paul Stereman and welcome to American beyond on the New Books Network. My guest today is Michael Scott. He is the author of Thaumistocles the Rise and Fall of Athens, Naval Mastermind. Thrilled to have him here today. He's a professor. Is professor of Classics and Ancient History for International affairs at the University of Warwick in the UK and the author of other books including Delphi, A History of the center of the Ancient World and X Marks the An Adventurous History of Archeology. Welcome to the show, Michael.
- [02:12]
Michael Scott
Thank you so much for having me. Paul. It's a great pleasure to be with you.
- [02:15]
Paul Stereman
Great. I just finished reading your book. I enjoyed it a lot. I recommend it. And perhaps you could just introduce for us us your central character.
- [02:26]
Michael Scott
Well, if anyone has any kind of sort of previous knowledge of the ancient Greek world, they'll know that it's dominated by the story of the city of Athens. And the story of the city of Athens, particularly in the fifth century BCE is dominated by, I would say two major storylines. One is Athens defeat of the Persian invasion of Greece at the beginning of the century century. And then the second storyline is the rise of its democracy and the creation of its empire in the middle to the second half of the century. Now, key to both of those stories, both the Persian invasion and to the rise of democracy and Athenian imperialism, is this character Themistocles. And so it's pretty hard, I think, to get involved in any kind of story of Athenian history during this period of the 5th century BCE, without hearing that name. But what I realised, and this is coming on the back of teaching ancient Greek history for a long time now, is that you very often mention the name, you very often talk about one or two key actions that Themistocles was responsible for in association with each of these great moments. But rarely do you go beyond that and have a think about Themistocles as an individual, as a character, as a person, as his life story, you know, the life arc, and how perhaps moments contributed to others and influenced him to act in the way that he did. And so when this opportunity came, Yale University Press got in touch and they said, look, we're doing this Ancient life series. Who would you like to write about? I was really keen to take this character we all hear about, but don't actually take the time to really delve into the life or very much, and offer up a better understanding of his life and his story.
- [04:25]
Paul Stereman
Sure. So when does it all begin? To the best of our knowledge, and I was intrigued. And you sort of depict him as something of an outsider in Athenian, broader sort of Greek society, and that in turn is a kind of key to character as well.
- [04:48]
Michael Scott
That's absolutely right. So we need to situate ourselves at the end of the 6th century BCE. We think Themistocles is born in and around the year 524 BCE. Now, if we put ourselves in the context of what's going on in Athens at that time, what's the politics? No democracy inside. Nothing even that might be glimpsed as democracy. In fact, Athens is under the rule of a tyrant, a tyrant ruler called Peisistratus. And, you know, that sounds bad. Tyrant equals bad, isn't it? In modern history? But actually in ancient Greek history in particular, tyrant didn't need necessarily to be a bad figure for the city. In fact, the rule of Peisistratus is thought to be a very positive period of Athenian improvement and generation. But it is very much the rule of one man. And if he listened to anyone else, it was to a very closed circle of aristocratic elites. And through that early period of Themistocles life, over his first sort of 20 years or so of his life, so that very formative period, what we will see is Athens political system changing dramatically, and that is its own influence. But you're absolutely right to say he's an outsider in the sense that when he's born he is not a member of that aristocratic elite circle. Dad is, I mean we would call it in modern day terms middle class, maybe upper middle, but certainly not aristocratic elite. His dad is, you know, quite a figure in the fighting force. He's a military general, he's being posted to the kind of outposts of Athenian influence and is fighting there. But his mother, on the other hand, is in the sources, a source of quite great consternation because she's definitely not an Athenian. She may be from the furthest reaches of the Greek world, she may even be beyond that, a real foreigner. Foreigner. Foreigner in ancient Greek terms. And that leaves him, leaves Themistocles in a very fragile and ambiguous liminal position within Athenian society only having one Athenian parent.
- [07:00]
Paul Stereman
Yeah. Wasn't there even some sort of scurrilous to talk about her in terms of her character?
- [07:07]
Michael Scott
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the sources differ. Some, as I say, posit her as coming from the fringes of the Greek world, some from way beyond the fringes of the Greek world. Some claim she was a slave, some claim she was a prostitute. So the sources differ, but they all agree on the fact that she is absolutely not an Athenian. And so Themistocles, if you looked at him when he was born, you would not imagine this person to ever be able to achieve anything really great and remarkable. He's not from the aristocratic elite families and even worse than that, he's only got one Athenian parent and his mother is a source of great consternation and not pride in the narrative that people would tell of their families and their backstories. So Themistocles begins life on the very edges, if you like, of Greek society without much to recommend him to ever have a central role to play in its politics.
- [08:00]
Paul Stereman
Right now one of his character attributes is ambition and that helps propel him. And there's a kind of framing here, just to kind of back up a little bit, A question that you engage from the start and follow through to the end is this idea of sort of, I guess we could call it nature versus nurture. And as I read what you were saying, this seems to be a kind of conventional interpretation, which I guess included Thucydides about this idea of nature being paramount and almost sounded like a sense of destiny, which is I guess a quality we often associate with the ancients, but one that you steadfastly contest. I read your interpretation. In some ways, maybe this is an overreach as a more modern type interpretation. I don't know if that's fair to say. But that I think is interesting just in terms of understanding a character like this and how we, you know, understand the arc that such a person can take.
- [09:16]
Michael Scott
Yeah, it's absolutely crucial. And you're absolutely right. Thucydides, the great Greek historian writing at the end of the 5th century BCE, is clear that he says Themistocles was one of the most illustrious Greeks of his time, first equal with one other Greek. And he attributes that greatness to the natural powers, the nature, as you put it, and the traditional word that is always associated that word illustrious in ancient Greek, it's the word lampros. And I think the issue for me is that that judgment and then that hindsight, benefit of hindsight writing of the story, the arc of his character, to talk about his natural brilliance that was destined to be great is really hung around just those two or three moments in time when his actions were. Will end up contributing to that great Athenian story of defeat of the Persian invasion, rise of democracy, rise of empire. And what it completely ignores is actually a much more varied career story. The book is called the Rise and Fall and I would have loved to have called it the Rises and the Falls of Athens Naval statesmen, because there are more rises and falls in his career than a modern day roller coaster. And that is completely airbrushed out of the story of Themistocles, even by the end of the 5th century BCE in Thucydides telling. And this characterisation of him as naturally brilliant, predestined for success. And so kind of, yes, while it is a sort of, I guess it is a more modern approach, isn't it, to go back in and look for the cracks in the narrative. But I think here it's a crucial one because actually when we're presented with that picture, as I tried to do in the book, of a much more varied career story in which Themistocles gets as much wrong as he gets right. And which crucially, as I'm sure we'll come to later, you know, his life ends fundamentally with him a convicted traitor to Greece and to Athens, you know, so how do we get from there, Adarc, back to the most illustrious Greek of his time? And it separates out for us the narrative of what the career was like from what the question of how his reputation was created and curated after his death.
- [11:47]
Paul Stereman
Right, well, okay, what was then the first rise and then the first fall after that rise?
- [11:55]
Michael Scott
So as we started off, we started talking about the fact that when he's born, he really doesn't look like he's going to amount to anything, frankly, if the political situation around him in Athens had not changed, continued to be a tyranny, there is no way he would have had a say or a role in anything. What is fundamental, you know, the first kind of perfect storm moment, and if you like, the first thing that allows him to rise completely outside of his nature is the fact that at the very end of the 6th century BCE, 508 BC, Athens undergoes political revolution. And we get the development of a new system of what the Greeks at the time, what the Athenians at the time called isonomia. So equality before the law. It's the system that will evolve into democracy, but they don't call it that at this stage. And it is that new system which allows a wider range of people to have a role and to have a say in Athenian politics. So without that change, Themistocles, the door wouldn't have been open to him. However, great, naturally great he was right.
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Paul Stereman
Circumstances.
- [12:57]
Michael Scott
Yeah. So circumstances crucial, then he's turning. It's pretty heady times. He is 16, 17, 18 when this new system comes into play. And so as we move into the first decade of the 5th century BCE, we see him in his twenties, actually able to start climbing the rungs of the political system. And we see him doing important, you know, slightly kind of mundane to our ears, but important roles, like the role of water commissioner in Athens. Now, that doesn't sound great. But on the other hand, in Greece, in the ancient world, maintaining a good water supply, quite a crucial aspect for the city to be able to survive, and thus quite a role with which you can make a reputation for yourself as a really good, safe pair of hands or someone equally that you can make a complete mess of it and destroy your reputation with. So he clearly does a good job in those kind of roles. And the next time we see him coming into kind of clear focus in the sources is at the end of that first decade of the 490s, 493, he is elected to become the archon, or chief magistrate, as we would call it, of the city. And that shows us that by the end of the 90s, by the time he's just turned 30, he's 31, he has been able to climb up through this new political system to become an important figure in the city.
- [14:23]
Paul Stereman
Right. And then, I mean, where do we get the stumble or the fall?
- [14:30]
Michael Scott
Yeah, well, I mean, the interesting thing. So that role is only for a year. The Athenian political system only allows these roles to be held for a year. So he's Archon in 4903 to 2 and he's 30. And of course in 490 we will have the first Persian invasion of Greece at the field of Marathon. So the Battle of Marathon, where kind of, no doubt you'll be familiar, the idea of the marathon race sort of supposedly comes from. And Themistocles is there fighting, leading kind of his political grouping. But after that battle he gets given no particular honours whatsoever. Others, his contemporaries, other political contemporaries that are his rivals for power and influence of the day get given much more illustrious and honorary roles and responsibilities. After the battle of Marathon he gets nothing. And so, you know, kind of.
- [15:24]
Paul Stereman
But is that unjust? I mean, was there some, you know, spectacular or really consequential thing that he did in the course of that battle?
- [15:35]
Michael Scott
No, there's nothing that he did or didn't do in the course of the battle and he's really upset about it. He feels it's very unjust. You know, the sources talk about the fact that he sleepless at night because he hasn't got the reward he thinks he deserves. But interestingly others, a long term rival of his, another character of the era called Aristeides, clearly has an even better reputation for honesty and justice because he is the one given the responsibility, for example, for keeping watch over all the, the treasure that they have stolen off the Persians and making sure that no one takes anything for themselves. But it's equally distributed, et cetera, et cetera. Others in the system, other rivals of his are being trusted more by the people of Athens than him. So this is a bit of a. It's not a fall necessarily, but it is a stop check and you know, a moment where actually we're not seeing this, a kind of indefatigable, absolutely predestined rise of this character continuing to be at the apex of Athenian politics throughout his entire career. As we will see a lot of in Athenian democracy. And in the story of Athenian democracy, people come to the fore and when they are no longer considered the most useful candidate for the people of Athens, they are dispensed with very quickly. This happens to Themistocles in the late 490s and early 480s.
- [17:06]
Paul Stereman
And you begin the book, I mean the prologue, you say the date was September 24th, 480 BCE. And this is a very gripping part. It's a little bit late later on now, but where he does something that I think most people today reading or at any time would find simply astonishing, which helps to forge a certain reputation that some might interpret as treachery. But, yeah, just describe the sort of the drama of that moment and what he did.
- [17:37]
Michael Scott
Yeah. So if you think he hasn't got the honor he wants after marathon in 490 and he spends the 480s cooling his heels and being part of Athenian politics, he's clearly there in the midst. But what brings him to the fore is that in the late 480s, the Athenians discover a whole new seam of silver in their silver mines. And there's a big debate about what to do with it. Do we divide it up equally and each have a piece? Do we use it to do something else with Themistocles is there putting forward an idea that they should use the entire lot to build a fleet, a fleet that would put them at the forefront of naval power in the Aegean at the time. And he wins that debate. And that is the moment where Themistocles comes back really to the fore of Athenian politics as the person who suggested that they should build a fleet. Now, again, people will look at this with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that just three or four years down the line, the Persians are going to invade with an enormous fleet, and they'll say, what amazing hindsight. But actually, at the time, Themistocles was probably responding more to local threats than he was to an understanding of what was to come. A couple of years later, 480bce, the Persians arrived back again with a massive fleet and a massive land army. Themistocles has a central role in leading the Athenian fleet contingent as part of the wider kind of Greek contingent. And the famous story to which you allude and which he becomes so associated with, is that when the Greek contingent is. Is falling apart and every other Greek commander wants to flee, everyone save themselves sort of attitude, Themistocles does something. He's tried to hold them together through persuasion. Hasn't worked. He's tried to hold them together through threats. Hasn't worked. So he looks to the only way he can think of as potentially holding them together, which is to give them no choice but to fight. And so he sends his slave across the battle lines at night to the Persian king to deliver a message saying that he wants to come over to the Persian side and that as a gesture of his goodwill for the Persian king, he is telling the Persian king that the Greeks are about to flee and the Greeks need to send. The Persians need to send their fleet into the narrow straits at a place called Salamis to prevent them from doing so and crush them once and for all. Now, as you Quite rightly point out, this looks like treachery. And if the Greeks had discovered it, they would have absolutely nailed him to a post as a traitor. And what we have to decide today is, you know, was this Themistocles actually being a traitor, Was it the brilliant ruse because he know, he knew the Persians would fall for it and then there would be a great Greek victory and he would emerge as this cunning, Machiavellian figure able to trick the Persian king? Or was it, as I'm slightly inclined to believe, Themistocles actually trying to make sure both avenues were open to him? Because if the trick works and the Greeks win, great. If it doesn't work, he is in the good books of the Persian king by any measure.
- [20:40]
Paul Stereman
It's an enormous roll of the dice.
- [20:43]
Michael Scott
A massive roll of the dice. A massive roll of the dice. And, you know, what we see is the Persian king sending his fleet into the straits at Salamis, and the Greeks, and particularly the Athenians, being victorious and crushing that fleet in those narrow straits where the big difference in numbers between the big, big Persian fleet and the smaller Greek fleet really didn't count for anything. What mattered was your maneuverability and your knowledge of the waters and your ability to ram ships into others and sink them. You know, so we have a. We have a moment here where Themistocles, with the benefit of hindsight, looks extremely cunning and clever. But actually, this was an extraordinary gamble and one born out of, I think, absolute sheer exhaustion of every other option to keep the Greek fleet together.
- [21:33]
Paul Stereman
Right. And in the aftermath of that, again, we might expect that he would be acknowledged, celebrated and all of that, but doesn't quite go that way.
- [21:45]
Michael Scott
Exactly. Again, we get. Just like after Marathon, we get this moment where all the, you know, all the Greek generals assembled to vote on who they thought was the best Greek general. And they all vote for themselves as number one. But they all vote. Yeah, yeah, they all vote for Themistocles as number two. So when they revote, saying, well, you know, clearly it's Themistocles as the winner, they all then go, no, no, we're not going to have that vote. And they all disband and don't give the prize out at all. So you can see that there is this rivalry and this tension and this somewhat distrust still of Themistocles as a character. And, you know, he does get wider public acknowledgment. There's a wonderful story of when he goes to the Olympic games in the 470s, wherever he walks in the Olympic arena, people stop looking at all the sports, and they all turn to him and applaud him. And you can tell that he absolutely loves and appreciates this. So there is an acknowledgment of his role, but it's not a uncomplicated one. And, and crucially, what I think we need to recognize again is that the year after Salamis, there was a major land battle because the Persian land army still had to be defeated. And in that battle, Themistocles plays no role whatsoever. He is completely dropped from the front bench. So again, we see Themistocles having been so essential to the salamis battle in 480. And all of the ancient biographers, like Plutarch and others, who want to tell a really positive story of Themistocles about how great this guy is, they've got nothing to say in this period. They completely gloss over it.
- [23:23]
Paul Stereman
Right. I mean, is it, do you think, an ingrained flaw of his, this need for, I don't know, validation or acknowledgement? I mean, doesn't sound to me like an uncommon trait for anyone really who has ambition in public life. But as I got deeper into the story you were telling, it struck me that that might be the thing that ultimately helps to undo him.
- [23:57]
Michael Scott
I think you're spot on. I mean, it goes back to that point that again, if we just remember in the background here, the political system of Athens is evolving constantly from that system of isonomia, equality before the law that came in at the beginning of the 6th century, to the 480s, when suddenly the Athenian people start making use of a political tool called ostracism. And our very term comes from the way the ancient Greeks did this vote, using ancient Greek pottery shards that are known as in ancient Greek as ostraca, that gives us the word ostracism. And they literally voted each year to chuck out the person who was annoying them the most. In the 480s, they're doing this constantly. And what you see is that pattern we alluded to before of people who come to the fore who can be useful to the Athenian people, great, they're brought up, they're put up, they're asked to contribute and to save the Athenian people. The moment they are no longer useful or the moment they get too big for their boots and start making it about them rather than about the Athenian people. The Athenian people turn around and very quickly dispense with these characters. And we see it time and time again in the Athenian story. So as we go through the 480s and into the 470s Athenian democracy. By the 470s, they're actually starting to refer to this political system as democratia, as people power. And so people are getting more and more empowered. The victories at Salamis and against the Persians have helped push that, that narrative and that self belief along. And at the same. So you've got people power going up and the sense of the people demanding that the story is about them as a whole, as a collective going up. And yet at the same time, you've got Themistocles getting increasingly individually frustrated that he's not getting the reward he deserves. And it comes to that head at the end of the 470s when Themistocles does something which I think speaks exactly to your characterization of him, where he's just completely lost the plot a bit. He sets up a temple in his, the area of Athens where his house is. It's a temple to the goddess Artemis. Fine Artemis with an epithet, Aristobule, which means Artemis the cunning, wise, counselor, planner, advisor. And if this wasn't enough to make you think that there might be a connection with Themistocles, he puts a bust, a portrait, sculptured bust of himself in the entry to the temple. You know, you couldn't get a more ridiculous over the top, personalized this is all about me statement. And it's no surprise that in 471, when the Athenian people come together to decide who to ostracize, they ostracize themistically.
- [26:44]
Paul Stereman
Well, in a way it makes him a more interesting character that he combines on the one hand this sort of imagination when it comes to battle and tactics and strategy. Image clearly suggests a kind of cunning mind and able to do logical calculations. Yet at the same time, this seems rather obtuse to put up that monument and statue. And it suggests that he was maybe deficient in certain aspects. I mean, we usually think of the successful political type as someone who is well able to kind of judge in a more kind of emotional way the climate of things.
- [27:28]
Michael Scott
Yeah, we would expect that sensitivity that could be applied to understanding not just the logistics and the strategy of battle, but what he's shown himself to be very skilled in is actually the psychological aspects of battle and of how to play people and to play enemies. And yet he seems to have a complete blind spot when it comes to how to actually engage the Athenian people and how to check and curate his own personal reputation, actions within the city.
- [28:02]
Paul Stereman
Yeah, and let's make maybe the Persians less abstract because they come into play in a very serious way as we get to Sort of his denouement, and I wasn't sure myself entirely what to make of it, so I'd like to hear from you is just this deepening involvement on his part with Persia and the Persians. The Persian king, I understand, not everything about it is completely understood, but basically what happens? How does he end up essentially in persia?
- [28:39]
Michael Scott
Yeah. So 471 BC, he has been ostracized from Athens, he's been expelled and exiled from Athens. Now, he could come back from that, he could have another rise in Athens. But what happens in the years immediately after that is he gets associated with a plot to actually abet the Persian king and to commit treason against Greece. And he is put on trial in Athens. He's asked to come back for the trial. He goes, no, thank you. And so he's tried in absentia and he is found guilty of treason. And the punishment for that in Athens was death. So he's gone from hero to exile to condemned to death, traitor in very short order. And at that point, there is no safe home for him anywhere in Greece because the Athenians are after him. Spartans, the other great city and power of Greece, absolutely are fed up with him at this stage as well, and thereafter him. And so he looks around him in the wider ancient world and goes, where can I go? And the irony of ironies is he thinks the only place he's got a chance of survival is to go to the Persian king, the very royal monarchical figure that he duped in the 480s at the battle of Salamis. And it may well have been that same Persian king, or it may well have been his son just starting to rule one or two years different. We're slightly unsure of the timeline, but he manages to make his way across to the Persian Empire, through the Persian Empire, to the court of the Persian King, and get an audience with the Persian king, where he says, look, I am Themistocles, I am the one who duped you, but don't kill me. I can be useful to you. Give me a year. And this is where I think we have to recognize his extraordinary resilience. I think by now he's in his mid-50s, his whole world has been left behind him. And he goes into a completely new world in the Persian capital in front of the Persian king and says, give me a year, let me learn Persian. And then you and I can talk and we can do it on your terms and I can show you how.
- [30:40]
Paul Stereman
I love that detail about learning Persian, because can you give us some idea of the difficulty of that task.
- [30:49]
Michael Scott
Absolutely. It's a completely different language, completely different language base. You know, this was in no way an easy task. And what's phenomenal is that this man in his mid-50s who learned Persian in a year, is credited with learning to speak Persian better than any Greek who had ever come to the Persian court before.
- [31:10]
Paul Stereman
I mean, that's. That really does seem incredible. And I have to say that does strike me as some aspect of nature because I'm a person who is. I've attempted to learn, you know, Russian for really the first time when I was about 40. And more recently, my wife and I are taking classes in Italian. You know, we have a little place. And, you know, I'm not a scientist, but I know there are some. You know, my children speak foreign languages quite, quite well because they learn them essentially from their mother. So, you know, there's. There must have been something in his brain, the way his synapses or something, that really was quite amazing.
- [31:51]
Michael Scott
Yeah. And again, it speaks to this kind of, as you say, we brought out this duplicity between his ability psychologically to read and to play other people. Again, with the Persian king, it's not just his ability to learn the language, but to recognize that that would be a key card, and then to use that linguistic skill to not only be the Greek who's learned Persian better than anyone else, but to be the most trusted Greek ever to come into the Persian king's inner circle. You know, that's the other thing that is said about him, that he gets closer to the Persian king as a result, over the next couple of years than any Greek before him. I mean, he's there. He is absolutely part of that inner circle, the king's trusted entourage. And the Persian king gives him a couple of cities to kind of rule over and to get an income from. And he's sitting there in Asia Minor kind of, as a result, Themistocles is minting his own coins. And part of the Persian king's inner circle, he is able to read and understand and play other people very well. But he seems to have had a complete blank spot, a blind spot, rather, in how to play the Athenian people as a whole.
- [33:02]
Paul Stereman
Right, okay, but. And to what degree is he, in fact, actively assisting the Persians in this continuing conflict with the Greek world?
- [33:16]
Michael Scott
Well, he's sort of given a bit of an out in this because during the 460s, he makes his way, gets settled in Persia about mid-460s BCE and through to the end of the 460s, actually, the Persian king is pretty tied up with dealing with rebellions and revolts in other parts of his empire, which he has to put down and deal with first. And so while he's clearly part of the circle, clearly part of the advice, he's not called upon to fulfill his primary offer. And that only comes about in 459 BCE, by which time he's about 64 years old. Persian king turns to him and goes, right, I now want to take the fight to Greece. You need to come good on your promise to help me. And there Themistocles is left with the ultimate decision. Do I now? You know, if I don't do this, he'll kill me. If I do do it, I am fundamentally betraying my Greek background and my Greek heritage. And he looks at that decision, and most of the sources agree that what he does is instead commit suicide so that he doesn't have to make that choice. And the Persian king reacts very positively to this. He sees it as a kind of honorable decision by the man who didn't want to be put in that position and is buried with all due pomp and ceremony in Persia. But the crucial fact is, you know, he is still in Greece, considered to be a condemned traitor who has run away from being killed as his punishment and gone to Persia and demonstrated that he is a traitor. You know, so how does this guy become the most illustrious Greek of his time?
- [34:56]
Paul Stereman
Yeah, well, I don't. I'm tempted to say it's positively cinematic. I mean, you know, that there are so many twists and turns and he's such a great character. So, yeah, I think we've reached the end of our time. But I again, want to encourage all of the listeners to read the book because it's truly a great story and it's very well told by Michael Scott. And I want to thank you for appearing here on America and Beyond.
- [35:26]
Michael Scott
Thank you for having me. It's been great to chat.