Exercise 9: Parenthetical Commas

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| By Eleanor Dickey

Eleanor Dickey, History & Literature

Eleanor is a distinguished Professor of Classics at the University of Reading in the UK, specializing in the study of classical literature, history, and culture.

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The sentences in this exercise are taken from R. Waterfield's translation of Plutarch's Life of Themistocles (Oxford 1998).

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Mar 21, 2023

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Oct 27, 2016

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Eleanor Dickey

Exercise 9: Parenthetical Commas

As soon as Themistocles had taken up the command, which he had been given, he set about getting his fellow citizens to board their triremes.

He tried to persuade them to abandon their city, Athens, and meet the Persians at sea as far away as possible from Greece.

At this juncture the Greeks asked Eurybiades and the Lacedaemonians to take command, but the Athenians, who had more ships than almost everyone else put together refused to be subordinate to anyone.

This is why Themistocles is held to be responsible, more than anyone else for the preservation of Greece, and to have played a particularly important part in bringing about the general recognition of the Athenians' superiority to their enemies in courage and to their allies in diplomacy.

It was his view that the Persian king, with his enormous fleet was too strong to be overcome at sea.

Among his fellow citizens, it was Architeles, the commander of the sacred vessel who most strongly resisted Themistocles' plans.

Anyway, this is what Phanias of Lesbos a writer whose works are now lost says Themistocles did.

This is because their actual achievements in the face of danger taught them that men, who know how to fight at close quarters and have the courage to engage the enemy have nothing to fear from huge numbers of ships, brightly decorated figureheads, boastful cries, or barbaric war-chants.

It is rather the case they learnt that they should disregard everything like that and just make for their actual physical enemies, come to grips with them and fight on to the bitter end.

It looks as though Pindar, the Boeotian poet also appreciated this point well enough when he said of the battle of Artemisium that it was 'where Athens' sons laid the gleaming foundation of freedom', because courage is the true origin of victory.

Artemisium is a north-facing beach in Euboea, past Hestiaea; it lies more or less opposite Olizon, which is in the land once ruled by Philoctetes.

There is at Artemisium a small temple of 'East-looking' Artemis as she is known there, which stands in a grove of trees, surrounded by blocks of white marble fixed in the ground.

One of the blocks of stone, on the north side has been inscribed with an elegiac poem.

One is shown a part of the beach where in the middle of all the surrounding sand the depths throw up a dark, ash-like dust which looks as though it is the result of fire; it is believed that the wrecked ships and bodies of the dead were burnt on this spot.

In this manoeuvre the Athenians, who were elated at their achievements were posted as rearguard because of the courage they had displayed.

Similar approval is given to his treatment of Arthmius of Zelea as well; again, at Themistocles' suggestion, this man's name was entered in the lists of the disenfranchised, along with those of his sons and his whole family.

Another action of his which meets with approval in my sources is his treatment of the bilingual man who was in the delegation sent by the Persian king to demand earth and water.

Themistocles they say was afraid that with the leadership in Epicydes' hands everything would be completely ruined, so he bribed his ambition out of him.

He withdrew leaving Epicydes the son of Euphemides (a popular leader who was a skilful orator, but who had an irresolute character and was open to bribes) to go for it, with a good chance of being successful in the voting.

The same behaviour which was found excusable in Cimon's case, because he was young and came from an important family, was taken to be excessive and presumptuous self-aggrandizement on Themistocles' part, with the result that he gained a reputation for pretentiousness.

Once, on a visit to Olympia he offended the Greeks by trying to outdo Cimon with the grandeur of his dinners, pavilions, paraphernalia and so on.

While he was still young, before he had come to public notice, he prevailed upon Epicles of Hermione, a popular lyre-player in Athens to play at his house.

When Diphilides the horse-breeder refused to give him a colt he had asked for, Themistocles threatened to turn his house, before long, into a wooden horse which was a hint that he would stir up recriminations within his family and provoke lawsuits between the man and his own relatives.

In order to achieve this, he had, as Stesimbrotus reports to overcome Miltiades' objections.