Themistocles refused to believe such a prediction. In a second prophecy, the Oracle said something that could be taken a number of ways about "wooden walls". Themistocles took this to mean the new, light wooden ships he had convinced his fellow citizens to have built. Triremes, which made up the Greek navy, could outmaneuver the heavier Persian ships which now threatened Greece. Seated on a golden throne, King Xerxes I of Persia watched on the beach as his ships were destroyed by the Greek navy. He fled for his life.
Themistocles grinned, remembering the Battle of Salamis. The Persians had been so utterly defeated, they would pose no threat to the Greek democracy for years to come. Now that an external threat was gone, the threat came more from the citizens themselves. He had never thought he would see the day he was voted as the "Man of the Year". The title was a hollow one.
There had been a minimum of six thousand votes cast by the citizens of Athens. (Women weren't allowed to vote). Names of men who were thought a danger to the principle of democracy were etched on fragments of pottery called 'ostrakon', then tallied up. The man whose name came up the most frequently was banished or exiled from Athens for ten years. Themistocles may have known that perhaps the vote had been rigged against him. Archeologists have found a number of pottery fragments in a well suggesting the vote had been heavily weighted against him by his enemies who resented his arrogance.
