Note 560 — Chapter XLIV · FROM THE BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE DOWN TO THE DEATHS OF THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTEIDES.

Thucyd. i, 137. ἦλθε γὰρ αὐτῷ ὕστερον ἔκ τε Ἀθηνῶν παρὰ τῶν φίλων, καὶ ἐξ Ἄργους ἃ ὑπεξέκειτο, etc.

I follow Mr. Fynes Clinton, in considering the year 471 B. C. to be the date of the ostracism of Themistoklês. It may probably be so, nor is there any evidence positively to contradict it: but I think Mr. Clinton states it too confidently, as he admits that Diodorus includes, in the chapters which he devotes to one archon, events which must have happened in several different years (see Fast. Hellen. B. C. 471).

After the expedition under the command of Pausanias in 478 B. C., we have no one date at once certain and accurate, until we come to the death of Xerxes, where Diodorus is confirmed by the Canon of the Persian kings, B. C. 465. This last event determines by close approximation and inference, the flight of Themistoklês, the siege of Naxos, and the death of Pausanias: for the other events of this period, we are reduced to a more vague approximation, and can ascertain little beyond their order of succession.