It is the insecurity of power, whether in a people or a king, that generates suspicion.

Habituated to liberty, a people become less rigid and more enlightened as to its precautions.
V.

It had been a saying of Aristides, "that if the Athenians desired their affairs to prosper, they ought to fling Themistocles and himself into the barathrum." But fortune was satisfied at this time with a single victim, and reserved the other for a later sacrifice.

Relieved from the presence of a rival who had constantly crossed and obstructed his career, Themistocles found ample scope for his genius.

He was not one of those who are unequal to the situation it costs them so much to obtain.