Themistocles being banished from Athens, while he stayed at Argos the detection of Pausanias happened. And after Pausanias was put to death, letters and writings were found which rendered Themistocles suspected, and his enemies among the Athenians accused him. In answer to the malicious detractions of his enemies, he merely wrote to the citizens urging that he who was always ambitious to govern, and not of a character or a disposition to serve, would never sell himself and his country into slavery to a barbarous and hostile nation.
Notwithstanding this, the people, being persuaded by his accuser, set officers to take him and bring him away to be tried before a council of the Greeks; but, having timely notice of it, he passed over into the island of Corcyra, where the state was under obligations to him; for, being chosen as arbitrator in a difference between them and the Corinthians, he decided the controversy by ordering the Corinthians to pay down twenty talents, and declaring the town and island of Leucas a joint colony from both cities. From thence he fled into Epirus, and, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians still pursuing him, he threw himself upon chances of safety that seemed all but desperate. For he fled fro refuge to Admetus, kind of the Molossians, who had formerly made some request to the Athenians when Themistocles was in the height of his authority, and had been disdainfully used and insulted by him, and had let it appear plain enough that could he lay hold of him he would take his revenge. Yet in this misfortune, Themistocles, fearing the recent hatred of his neighbors and fellow-citizens more than the old displeasure of the king, put himself at his mercy, and became an humble suppliant to Admetus, after a peculiar manner, different from the custom of other countries. For taking the king's son, who was then a child, in his arms, he laid himself down at his hearth, this being the most sacred and only manner of supplication, among the Molossians, which was not to be refused.
Thucydides says, that, passing over land to the Aegean Sea, he took shop at Pydna in the bay of Thermae, not being known to any one in the ship, till, being terrified to see the vessel driven by the winds near to Naxos, which was then besieged by the Athenians, he made himself known to the master and pilot, and, partly entreating them, partly threatening, he compelled them to bear off and stand out to sea, and sail forward toward the coast of Aisa.
When he arrived at Cyme, and understood that all along the coast many laid in wait for him (the king of Persia having offered by public proclamation two hundred talents to him that should take him), he fled to Aegae, a small city of the Aeolians, where no one knew him but only his host Nicogenes, who was the richest man in Aeolia, and well known to the great men of Inner Asia. There Themistocles, going to bed, dreamed that he saw a snake coil itself up upon his belly, and so creep to his neck; then, as soon as it touched his face, it turned into an eagle, which spread its wings over him, and took him up and flew away with him a great distance; then there appeared a herald's golden wand, and upon this at last it set him down securely, after infinite terror and disturbance.
His departure was effected by Nicogenes by the following artifice:
the barbarous nations, and among them the Persians especially, are extremely jealous, severe, and suspicious about their wives, whom they keep so strictly that no one ever sees them abroad; they spend their lives shut up within doors, and, when they take a journey, are carried in close tenets, curtained in on all sides, and set upon a wagon. Such a traveling carriage being prepared for Themistocles, they hid him in it, and carried him on his journey, and told those whom they met or spoke with upon the road that they were conveying a young Greek woman out of Ionia to a nobleman at court.