‘What place is out of the reach of your enemies?’ one of his daughters said.

It was her mother who replied, her eyes dark with sorrow.

‘Persia,’ Nicomache replied.

Themistocles nodded.

‘Come, all of you,’ he said, clapping his hands. The sound was loud in that place, so that some of them jumped. ‘Gather anything you cannot bear to lose. Someone put a rope on the two mules … go on then! Don’t stand there and talk to me! Go!’

In a few moments, he was alone with his wife, mother to around half his children. Nicomache came to his embrace, kissing his cheek and then pressing her head against his chest.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘They should be raising statues to you, not this.’

‘I heard they put one up to Xanthippus!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Oh, I should have known they would not just let me go. I made too many mistakes, amidst the moments of extraordinary genius.’

He chuckled to himself, but his eyes were dark. Children were already staggering past, their arms filled with all the things they loved. He touched a hand to his eyes, blinking hard.

‘Come, my little ones, my pups! I can’t leave until I know you are all safe. Let me see you on the road to Argos and armed like hoplites!’ He turned to his wife then, kissing her on the forehead as he spoke in a lower voice. ‘Before I go to ask a Persian king for mercy and forgiveness.’

‘What if Xerxes kills you?’ she asked him.

Themistocles shrugged.

‘I expect you will marry again,’ he said.

She slapped him on the chest, in love and worry more than real exasperation.

Themistocles found a berth on a merchant ship out of the bay of Argos, heading south. It was a slab-sided, wallowing vessel with a large single sail, as far from the warships he had known as a hammer is from a dagger. Yet it could hold a great cargo and withstand rougher seas than any trireme. Themistocles slept below decks with the crew and a thousand clay amphorae of oil and wine. Rats scrabbled in the deep hold and the air was thick with damp, but at least he was protected from the sea spray and wind. If any of the crew or their captain recognised him, they said nothing. He travelled with little more than a sword, a pouch of silver and a second pair of sandals.

Themistocles had never gone to sea from the Peloponnese before. He dreaded being stopped and searched by an Athenian warship. If one of those ordered his captain to drop sails to be inspected, the man would do so in a heartbeat. Nothing could outrun a trireme on a calm sea.