2.5
But in the first essays of his youth he was uneven and unstable, since he gave his natural impulses free course, which, without due address and training, rush to violent extremes in the objects of their pursuit, and often degenerate; as he himself in later life confessed, when he said that even the wildest colts made very good horses, if only they got the proper breaking and training.
2.6
What some story-makers add to this, however, to the effect that his father disinherited him, and his mother took her own life for very grief at her son’s ill-fame, this I think is false. And, in just the opposite vein, there are some who say that his father fondly tried to divert him from public life, pointing out to him old triremes on the sea-shore, all wrecked and neglected, and intimating that the people treated their leaders in like fashion when these were past service.
3.1
Speedily, however, as it seems, and while he was still in all the ardor of youth, public affairs laid their grasp upon Themistocles, and his impulse to win reputation got strong mastery over him. Wherefore, from the very beginning, in his desire to be first, he boldly encountered the enmity of men who had power and were already first in the city, especially that of Aristides the son of Lysimachus, who was always his opponent. And yet it is thought that his enmity with this man had an altogether puerile beginning. They were both lovers of the beautiful Stesilaus, a native of Ceos, as Ariston the philosopher has recorded, and thenceforward they continued to be rivals in public life also.
