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130 HISTORY OF GREECE. Meanwhile, that angry controversy among the Grecian chiefs, in the midst of which Themistokles had sent over his secret envoy, continued without abatement and without decision. It was the interest of the Athenian general to prolong the debate, and to prevent any concluding vote until the effect of his strata- gem should have rendered retreat impossible : nor was prolonga- tion difficult in a case so critical, where the majority of chiefs was on one side and that of naval force on the other, — especially as Eurybiades himself was favorable to the view of Themis- tokles. Accordingly, the debate was still unfinished at nightfall, and either continued all night, or was adjourned to an hour before daybreak on the following morning, when an incident, interesting as well as important, gave to it a new turn. The ostracized Aristeides arrived at Salamis from ^gina. Since the revocation of his sentence, proposed by Themistokles himself, he had had no opportunity of revisiting Athens, and he now for the first time rejoined his countrymen in their exile at Salamis ; not uninformed of the dissensions raging, and of the impatience of the Pelopon- nesians to retire to the Isthmus. He was the first to bring the news that such retirement had become impracticable from the position of the Persian fleet, which his own vessel, in coming from ^gina, had only eluded under favor of night. He caused Themistokles to be invited out from the assembled synod of chiefs, and after a generous exordium, wherein he expressed his hope that their rivalry would for the future be only a competition in doing good to their common country, apprized him that the new movement of the Persians excluded all hope of now reaching the Isthmus and rendered farther debate useless. Themistokles expressed his joy at the intelligence, and communicated his own secret message whereby he had himself brought the movement about, in order that the Peloponnesian chiefs might be forced to fight at Salamis, even against their own consent. He moreover desired Aristeides to go himself into the synod, and communicate the news : for if it came from the lips of Themistokles, the Peloponnesians would treat it as a fabrication. So obstinate indeed was their incredulity, that they refused to accept it as truth even on the assertion of Aristeides : nor was it until the arrival of a Tenian vessel, deserting from the Persian fleet, that they at last brought themselves to credit the actual posture of