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Marathon was a stunning victory.
Those who fought there became known as the Marathonomachoi —
among them the great tragedian Aeschylus,
whose tombstone never bothers to mention his dramas; only his glorious involvement at Marathon.
With the enemy vanquished, the Athenians slept soundly —
all except Themistocles, who yearned for the glory that went to Miltiades.
Not that Miltiades remained a hero very long.
The next year, he made a dreadful mess of an expedition to Paros,
was promptly thrown in prison by the angry Athenians,
and died shortly thereafter from a gangrenous leg wound.
Great men, you see, rarely meet great ends.
Lack of recognition wasn’t the only thing that kept Themistocles awake at night:
he knew that the Persians would soon return, and Athens was utterly unprepared.
So when the Athenians struck a rich vein of silver, Themistocles proposed something radical:
they should spend it on a fleet of warships,
and transform their unremarkable city into a naval power.
His rival Aristides disagreed, as you might expect.
The Persian threat was gone, he argued, and fleets are squalid things rowed by squalid men.
The Athenians had a wonderfully efficient way to resolve disputes like these: an ostracism.
Unlike regular elections,
where the Athenians voted eagerly for whoever made them the most extravagant promises,
in an ostracism, the citizens voted to expel whichever politician they found most disagreeable.
This was Themistocles’ opportunity:
if he could get his stubborn rival Aristides ostracized, he could have his fleet —
and his chance at glory.