Themistocles

Themistocles son of Neocles, of the Lycomid genos — junior strategos at Marathon, chief strategos by the mid-480s, architect of the Athenian fleet (the Laurion silver windfall of 483 devoted to building 200 triremes at his proposal) and the dominant strategic mind of the second invasion. At Salamis he outmanoeuvred both Eurybiades of Sparta (nominal overall commander) and the Peloponnesian faction who wanted to withdraw to the Isthmus, by secretly sending his household slave Sicinnus to Xerxes with the false message that the Greek fleet was about to break up and should be blockaded in the straits. Xerxes took the bait, engaged in the narrows where Persian numbers could not deploy, and lost the fleet. Themistocles later fell out with Athens, was ostracised c. 471, and ended his life at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes — appointed satrap of three cities in Aeolis, where he died c. 459.

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