ARISTIDES, the son of Lysimachus, belonged to the tribe of Antiochis and the deme of Alopece. The extent of his wealth has been much disputed: according to some accounts he spent his whole life in extreme poverty, and at his death left his daughters so ill provided that for a long time they remained unmarried. But while many writers have repeated this version, Demetrius of Phalerum in his book on Socrates says that he knows of an estate in Phalerum which belonged to Aristides and where he is buried, and maintains that there is further evidence that he was a wealthy man. In the first place there is the fact that he held the office of Archon Eponymus, which was only open to a man who had drawn it by lot and who belonged to the class of families carrying the highest property assessment (known as the Pentacosiomedimni, or receivers of 500 bushels a year). Secondly, there is the matter of his ostracism; for this, Demetrius argues, was not inflicted on the poorer citizens, but only on the members of the great houses whose family pretensions excited envy. Lastly, there is the fact that he left behind in the precinct of Dionysus several tripods as offerings to commemorate his victory as choregus.1 These are to be seen to this day, still bearing the inscription: ‘The tribe Antiochis won the victory; Aristides was the choregus; Archestratus was the poet.’
Now this last argument, although it looks an impressive one, is really very weak. Both Epaminondas, who as everybody knows, was brought up and lived all his life in great poverty, and Plato the philosopher were responsible for public entertainments on a very ambitious scale – performances which were given in the first case by male flute-players and in the second by a chorus of boys trained to sing and dance – but the money was provided for Plato by Dion of Syracuse and for Epaminondas by Pelopidas. Good men are by no means implacably hostile to the gifts offered by their friends; they regard it as mean and sordid to hoard away presents with the object of increasing their own wealth, but they do not refuse the kind of gift which enables them to make a handsome public gesture without enriching themselves.
In the case of the tripods, however, Panaetius argues that Demetrius was misled by a confusion of names. From the time of the Persian wars, he says, down to the end of the Peloponnesian war there are only two records of an Aristides as the victorious choregus, and neither of these is the son of Lysimachus. One of them was the son of Xenophilus and the other lived much later. The evidence for this is in the first place the inscription itself, which displays the Ionian lettering used after the archonship of Eucleides,1 and secondly the coupling with Aristides of the name of Archestratus. The latter is nowhere mentioned during the Persian wars, but his name often appears during the Peloponnesian war as belonging to a choric poet.
Panaetius’s argument deserves to be examined more closely. But as for the penalty of ostracism, this could be inflicted upon anyone who was regarded as standing above the common level in prestige, in birth, or in eloquence. It was for this reason, for example, that Damon, Pericles’ teacher, was ostracized, because he was considered to be a man of extraordinary intellectual power. Again, according to Idomeneus, Aristides was not appointed archon by lot,2 but was elected by the Athenians. Certainly, if he became archon after the battle of Plataea, as Demetrius himself has recorded, it is not at all surprising, in view of the reputation and the success he gained on that occasion, that his courage should have earned him an office which other men obtained through their wealth by drawing lots for it. Demetrius, in fact, is obviously concerned to exempt both Aristides and Socrates from what he regards as the great evil of poverty, for he tells us that Socrates possessed not only a house of his own but a sum of seventy minae, which was lent at interest to Crito.
2. Aristides was a close friend of Cleisthenes, who established the Athenian constitution after the expulsion of the tyrants,1 but the man whom he admired and took as his model above all other statesmen was Lycurgus the Spartan. In consequence Aristides supported an aristocratic form of government and so constantly found himself in opposition to Themistocles, the son of Neocles, who was the champion of the people. Some writers say that these two, even when they were children and pupils together, invariably opposed each other in their words and actions, not only in serious matters but even in play, and that this rivalry quickly revealed their respective natures, Themistocles’ being resourceful, daring, unscrupulous, and ready to dash impetuously into any undertaking, while Aristides’ was founded upon a steadfast character, which was intent on justice and incapable of any falsehood, vulgarity, or trickery even in jest.
Ariston of Ceos, however, maintains that this enmity between the two, which rose to such a pitch of intensity, had its origins in a love affair, for both men were passionately devoted to Stesilaus of Ceos, the most strikingly handsome youth of his time. These feelings were carried to such lengths that they did not lay aside their rivalry even after the boy’s beauty had long passed away. It was as if this had been merely a preliminary bout, after which they both plunged into politics with passionate energy and in pursuit of diametrically opposite objectives.
Themistocles joined a political group and in this way secured considerable influence and protection for himself, so much so that when someone remarked to him that he would be a good man to govern the Athenians, always provided that he would be just and impartial to everybody, he answered: ‘I hope I shall never sit on a tribunal where I shall not be able to give my friends some advantage over strangers.’
Aristides, by contrast, avoided any attachments in political life and chose to follow his own path. This was, in the first place, because he did not want to be drawn by political associates into committing injustices, nor again to vex them by denying their requests, and, secondly, because he saw that many men were encouraged to do wrong by the power they derived from their friends, and he was anxious to guard against this, believing as he did that the only true security for the good citizen lay in his own words and actions.
3. On the other hand, because Themistocles was constantly proposing reckless reforms and at the same time checking and obstructing him at every step in the business of government, Aristides was forced to oppose Themistocles’ measures in the same fashion, partly in self-defence and partly to limit his opponent’s power, which was constantly growing with the support of the people. He thought it better that the people should forgo an occasional advantage than that Themistocles should get his way on every occasion and carry all before him. But finally he opposed and defeated Themistocles at a moment when the latter was trying to carry a really necessary measure, and then Aristides could not refrain from saying, as he left the Assembly, that there would be no safety for Athens unless the people threw both Themistocles and himself into the barathrum.1
On another occasion he had himself brought a certain bill before the people, which he was carrying through successfully, although in the teeth of vigorous opposition. But just as the president of the Assembly was about to put it to the vote, Aristides understood from the speeches of his opponents that it would prove a bad measure and withdrew it without taking a division. Often, too, he would introduce his proposals under the names of other men, so that Themistocles should not oppose measures which could benefit the whole community simply out of personal antagonism towards himself.
What was particularly admirable about him was his strength of purpose amid the ebb and flow of political fortunes. He was never unduly elated by any honours that were paid him, while he bore his reverses with serene composure and he believed it his duty to give his services to his country at all times freely and without reward, not merely in terms of money, but also of reputation. This was how it came about, so the story goes, that when Aeschylus’s verses which refer to Amphiaraus in The Seven Against Thebeswere being recited in the theatre,
His aim is not to seem just, but to be so.
His mind is a deep-ploughed field, from which he reaps
A harvest of wise counsel…2
the whole audience turned round to look at Aristides, because they felt that he, more than any man, was the personification of these virtues.
4. He was a sturdy champion of justice, who was as little swayed by personal sympathy or the desire to do a favour as he was by feelings of anger or hatred. At any rate there is a story of how, when he was prosecuting a personal enemy in court, the jury were disinclined to hear the defence at all and demanded that the vote should be taken at once. Thereupon Aristides jumped to his feet and supported the defendant’s plea that he should be allowed his legal rights and have his case heard. On another occasion, when he was acting as private arbitrator between two parties, one of them made the point that his opponent had done Aristides serious harm. ‘Do not tell me about that,’ Aristides answered, ‘tell me what harm he has done you. I am here to judge your case, not mine.’
When he was elected to supervise the public revenue, he uncovered the fact that not only his colleagues, but also his predecessors had embezzled large sums of money, and none more than Themistocles,
A clever man, but apt to be light-fingered.
For this reason Themistocles was able to unite a large number of people against Aristides: he then proceeded to prosecute him for malversation in the presenting of his accounts, and, according to Idomeneus, actually got him convicted. However, the leading and most upright citizens in Athens were roused to indignation at this, and in the event he was not only exempted from the fine, but was appointed to hold the very same office again. After this Aristides pretended to regret his earlier actions and to show a more indulgent attitude. He made himself extremely popular with the men who were stealing the public funds by not investigating their dealings or scrutinizing them minutely, so that they proceeded to fill their pockets, praise Aristides to the skies and even, in their anxiety to get him reelected, canvass the people on his behalf. But just as the voting was about to begin, Aristides rose and gave the Athenians a piece of his mind. ‘When I carried out my duties well and faithfully,’ he told them, ‘I was disgraced. But now that I am throwing away most of your money to thieves, everybody thinks I am an admirable citizen. So far as I am concerned, I am more ashamed of the honour you are paying me now than I was of my conviction, and I am sorry for you, because you evidently find it more praiseworthy to pander to a set of rogues than to stand guard over the wealth of the state.’ By these words and by exposing their thefts, he certainly silenced the men who were clamouring in his support, but he also won genuine and well-merited praise from the most honest citizens.
5. When Datis was sent out by king Darius, on the pretext of punishing the Athenians for the burning of Sardis, but really to subdue the whole of Greece, he landed all his forces at Marathon and proceeded to ravage the countryside. Of the ten generals1 whom the Athenians had appointed to conduct the war, Miltiades enjoyed the highest prestige, while Aristides was rated second in reputation and ability, and the fact that he supported on that occasion Miltiades’ proposal to attack had an important effect on the issue. Each general held the supreme command for one day, and when Aristides’ turn arrived, he handed over his authority to Miltiades, thereby demonstrating to his colleagues that it is both prudent and dignified and certainly no disgrace to obey those who are best qualified to command. By calming down his fellow-generals’ rivalry in this way and persuading them to accept a single plan, which was also the best, he provided Miltiades with the strength which comes from undivided authority, for each of the generals at once agreed to give up his day of command and came to Miltiades for his orders.
During the battle it was the Athenian centre which bore the main weight of the attack, and it was there that the Persians held out longest, ranged against the tribes of Leontis and Antiochis. Themistocles and Aristides both fought with great distinction side by side in the front line, for the one belonged to Leontis and the other to Antiochis. When the Athenians had routed the enemy and forced them back on board their ships, they saw that the barbarians were not making for the islands, but were being carried by wind and current towards Attica. They were alarmed that the Persians might find the capital undefended, and so hurried back with nine of the tribes and arrived in Athens on the same day. Aristides, however, was left at Marathon with his own tribe to guard the prisoners and the spoils of the battle. He lived up to his reputation, for although there was gold and silver lying about in heaps, clothes of every kind and untold wealth which had been left in the tents and the captured ships, he had no desire to touch these things himself, nor would he allow others to do so, although there were some who helped themselves without his knowledge. Among these was Callias the Torchbearer.1
One of the barbarians, it appears, believed that Callias was a king on account of his long hair and the fillet he wore, and so he fell on his knees, made obeisance before him and taking his hand as a suppliant, showed him a pile of gold, which lay buried in a kind of pit. Callias then went on to behave in the most inhuman and lawless fashion. He took the gold, but immediately killed the man to prevent his betraying the secret to anyone else. Because of this the comic poets, it is said, called his descendants Laccopluti or men who became wealthy from a well, a gibe at the place where Callias found his gold.
Aristides was at once appointed Archon Eponymus (that is the archon who gives his name to the year), and yet Demetrius of Phalerum says that it was only a little while before his death and after the battle of Plataea that he held this office.2 But in the public records after the name of Xanthippides, in whose archonship Mardonius was defeated at Plataea, you can nowhere find the name of Aristides in the whole list of those who held the office, whereas immediately after Phaenippus, whose year coincided with the victory of Marathon, there is an Aristides mentioned as archon.
6. Of all Aristides’ virtues it was his justice which most impressed itself on the masses, since it was this which he practised most consistently and which affected most people. For this reason, although he was poor and had no standing but that of a popular leader, he won that most royal and godlike title of The Just. That is an epithet which was never sought after by kings or tyrants: some of them delighted in being styled The Besieger of Cities, The Thunderbolt, or The Conqueror, and others The Eagle or The Hawk, but all of them, apparently, preferred a renown which was founded on power or violence rather than on virtue. And yet the divine nature, with which these men strive to be associated and to resemble, is believed to be distinguished by three superior attributes, immortality, power, and virtue, and of these the noblest and the most truly divine is virtue. The void and the elements are, in a sense, immortal, and earthquakes, thunderbolts, floods, and hurricanes can overwhelm by their power, but justice belongs only to those beings who are capable of reason and the knowledge of the divine.
So when we consider the three sentiments, admiration, fear, and reverence, which divinity inspires among mankind, we find that men appear to admire the gods and think them blessed because they are immortal and unchangeable; to stand in fear and awe of them because of their power and authority; and to love, honour, and reverence them because of their justice. At the same time men long for immortality, to which no flesh can attain, and for power, which remains for the most part in the hands of fortune, while they give virtue, the only divine excellence of which we are capable, the last place in their scheme of values. But here they show themselves fools, since a life that is spent in the midst of power and great fortune and authority still needs justice to make it divine, for injustice renders it merely brutish.
7. But to return to Aristides. It was his fate first of all to be loved because of this surname, but afterwards to be envied and hated, especially when Themistocles put about the story that by the fact of his acting as arbitrator and judging all cases referred to him in private, Aristides had abolished the public courts, and that without anybody noticing it, he had made himself virtually the ruler of Athens, and only lacked an armed bodyguard. By this time, too, the people had become so exultant because of their victory over the Persians that they thought themselves capable of anything and were offended at anybody whose name and reputation rose above the common level. So they flocked into the city from all over Attica and proceeded to ostracize Aristides,1 disguising their jealously of his fame under the pretext that they were afraid of a tyranny.
This sentence of ostracism was not in itself a punishment for wrongdoing. It was described for the sake of appearances as a measure to curtail and humble a man’s power and prestige in cases where these had grown oppressive; but in reality it was a humane device for appeasing the people’s jealousy, which could thus vent its desire to do harm, not by inflicting some irreparable injury, but by a sentence of ten years’ banishment. Later on the penalty came to be inflicted on various ignoble creatures, the scum of the political world, and it was then abandoned, the last man to be ostracized being Hyperbolus.1 Hyperbolus’s banishment is said to have been brought about in this way. Alcibiades and Nicias, the two most powerful men in the state, were the leaders of the two opposing parties. So when the people were on the point of carrying out an ostracism and were obviously going to vote against one or the other, the two men came to terms, combined their rival factions and so arranged matters that Hyperbolus was ostracized. The people were enraged at this and felt that the institution of ostracism had been abused and degraded, and so they not only ceased to resort to it but formally abolished the practice.
The procedure, to give a general account of it, was as follows. Each voter took an ostrakon, or piece of earthenware, wrote on it the name of the citizen he wished to be banished and carried it to a part of the market-place which was fenced off with a circular paling. Then the archons first counted the total number of votes cast, for if there were less than six thousand, the ostracism was void. After this they sorted the votes and the man who had the most recorded against his name was proclaimed to be exiled for ten years, with the right, however, to receive the income from his estate.
The story goes that on this occasion, while the votes were being written down, an illiterate and uncouth rustic handed his piece of earthenware to Aristides and asked him to write the name Aristides on it. The latter was astonished and asked the man what harm Aristides had ever done him. ‘None whatever,’ was the reply, ‘I do not even know the fellow, but I am sick of hearing him called The Just everywhere!’ When he heard this, Aristides said nothing, but wrote his name on the ostrakon and handed it back. At the last, as he was leaving the city, he lifted his hands to heaven and uttered a prayer, which, it appears, took the opposite form to the prayer of Achilles:2 in it he begged that no crisis might befall the Athenians which would force them to remember Aristides.
8. However, less than three years later1 Xerxes was marching through Thessaly and Boeotia on his way to Attica and the Athenians revoked the decree of ostracism and passed another to recall the exiles: they were particularly alarmed that Aristides might go over to the enemy and seduce many of his fellow-citizens into joining the barbarians. But here, too, they greatly misjudged their man, for even before this latest decree he had constantly encouraged and incited the Greeks to defend their freedom. Then, after it had been passed, and at the time when Themistocles was serving as general with supreme powers, Aristides gave him all the aid he could both in advice and in action, and for the sake of Athens he helped his bitterest enemy to become the most famous of men.
Thus, for example, at the moment when Eurybiades was preparing to abandon Salamis, the Persian ships put to sea at night and surrounded him, blockading both the straits where he lay and the approaches to the islands. None of the Greeks knew that they had been encircled, but Aristides boldly sailed over from Aegina, running the gauntlet of the enemy’s fleet and came after nightfall to Themistocles’ tent. He called him outside and when the two men were alone together, he said: ‘We two, Themistocles, if we have any sense, will have to stop this vain and childish feud of ours. From now on we ought to begin a more honourable kind of contest to save our country, with yourself in command and with me to advise and help you. I see already that you are the only man who has grasped what is the best course for us, when you insist that we should stay here and fight out the issue in the straits as soon as possible. It is true that your allies are hindering you, but at any rate the enemy seems to be playing into your hands. The sea is full of their ships all around us and behind us, too, so that even those who least like the idea will have to take their courage in both hands and fight. There is no way out now.’ Themistocles answered: ‘I would not have chosen to be outdone by you, Aristides. But I admire the example you have set me and I shall try to follow it and to do better still in future.’ At the same time he told Aristides of the trap he had laid for the barbarians and begged him to argue with Eurybiades and try to convince him – since Aristides’ opinion carried more weight with the commander-in-chief – that the only hope of safety lay in fighting a battle at sea. When the council of generals met, Cleocritus the Corinthian told Themistocles that even Aristides was opposed to his plan, since although he was present he had refrained from speaking. Aristides at once replied that he would certainly have spoken if he had not believed that Themistocles had already given the soundest advice: as it was he had said nothing, not for any goodwill he bore Themistocles, but because he was convinced that his scheme was the best.
9. While the Greek commanders were putting this plan into effect, Aristides noticed that Psyttaleia, a small island lying in the strait in front of Salamis, was swarming with the enemy’s troops. So he embarked a force of the most enterprising and best trained of the Athenians in small boats, landed on Psyttaleia, attacked the barbarians, and killed every one of them, except for a few of the Persian nobles, who were captured alive. Among these were three sons of the king’s sister, Sandauce, whom he immediately sent to Themistocles, and it is said that at the command of Euphrantides the prophet they were sacrificed to Dionysus the Eater of Flesh in obedience to some oracle. Aristides then lined the beaches of the island all round with his infantry, to watch for anybody who might be washed up, so that none of the Greeks should lose their lives and none of the Persians escape. In fact, the main clash between the two fleets and the heaviest fighting of the whole battle seems to have taken place near this spot, and for this reason a trophy was afterwards set up on Psyttaleia.
After the battle was won, Themistocles thought he would test Aristides’ opinion, and remarked that the action they had just carried through was splendid in itself, but that there was an even greater objective before them, and that was to capture Asia in Europe by sailing as quickly as possible to the Hellespont and breaking down the bridge of boats there. This drew a sharp exclamation from Aristides and he urged Themistocles to drop the plan at once and apply his wits instead to finding the quickest means of getting the Persians out of Greece. He was afraid that an army of such an immense size, if it were shut up and could see no way of escape, might turn and fight from sheer necessity. So Themistocles once again secretly sent the eunuch Arnaces, who was one of the prisoners of war, to tell the king that the Greeks had already sailed to attack the bridges, but that Themistocles had succeeded in turning them back, as he wished to save the king’s life.
10. Xerxes was terrified by this report and at once set out with all speed for the Hellespont, while Mardonius was left behind with 300,000 men,1 the most seasoned troops in the army. He was a formidable opponent who had plenty of confidence in his land forces, and he wrote in threatening terms to the Greeks as follows: ‘With that fleet of yours you have managed to defeat men who are used to dry land and know nothing about handling an oar. But now the land of Thessaly is wide, and the plains of Boeotia are fair ground for good cavalry and infantry to fight on.’
At the same time he sent the Athenians private letters and proposals from the king, who offered to rebuild their city, give them large sums of money, and establish them as the masters of Greece, if only they would withdraw from the war.
The news of this caused great alarm among the Spartans; they dispatched an embassy to Athens and begged the Athenians to send their wives and children to Sparta and to accept provisions from them for the old and the sick, for the people were suffering great privations as a result of their city and their territory having both been overrun at once. In spite of this, after receiving the ambassadors they returned an answer drawn up by Aristides, which cannot but command our admiration. They declared that they could excuse their enemies for supposing that everything could be bought with money, because such people had no conception of anything of higher value, but that they were offended with the Spartans for having eyes only for the poverty and scarcity that prevailed in Athens and for so far forgetting the bravery and the spirit of the Athenians as to appeal to them to fight for Greece by offering rations. After proposing this motion, Aristides called the ambassadors into the Assembly and told the Spartans to report to their people that there was not enough gold in the world, above the ground or under it, to tempt the Athenians to barter away the freedom of Greece. As for Mardonius’s messengers, Aristides pointed to the sun and declared: ‘As long as the sun there keeps its course about the world, so long will the Athenians make war on the Persians, because of the lands they have ravaged and the temples they have defiled and burned down.’ Besides this he moved that the priests should lay a curse on any man who entered into negotiations with the Medes or abandoned the Greek alliance.
When Mardonius invaded Attica for the second time,1 the people once more crossed over to Salamis. Then Aristides, who had been sent to Sparta, reproached the Spartans for their slowness and their indifference and for having abandoned Athens to the barbarians yet again, and demanded that they should come to the rescue of what still remained of Greece. When the ephors heard this the festival of the Hyacinthia was still in progress, and they continued to while away the time with public celebrations and entertainments so long as it was daylight. But once it was dark they chose 5,000 Spartans, each attended by seven Helots, and sent them off without telling the Athenians. So when Aristides again appeared before them to complain, they laughed and replied that he was talking nonsense or else must be only half awake, because the army had already arrived at the tomb of Orestes in Arcadia on its march against ‘the foreigners’, for this was the name they gave the Persians. Aristides retorted that it was a particularly ill-timed joke to deceive their allies instead of their enemies. This is the account given by Idomeneus. But in the decree whieh Aristides had passed, it is not he who is named as an ambassador to Sparta, but Cimon, Xanthippus, and Myronides.
11. Aristides was appointed the Athenian general with full powers for the battle2 that was now expected, and he came to Plataea in command of 8,000 Athenian hoplites. Pausanias, the commander-in-chief of the whole Greek army, joined him there with his force of Spartans and the remainder of the Greek contingents came thronging in one after the other. The whole barbarian camp was extended along the bank of the river Asopus. It had no fixed boundaries, because of the immense size of the army, but the baggage trains and the main headquarters were enclosed within a walled square, each side of which was a mile and a quarter long.
Tisamenes of Elis now uttered a prophecy to Pausanias and all the Greeks. He foretold that they would win a victory provided that they did not advance to the attack, but stayed on the defensive. Aristides, however, sent to Delphi, and his messengers received an answer from the god that the Athenians would overcome their adversaries on condition that they prayed to Zeus, Hera of Cithaeron, Pan and the Sphragitic nymphs; that they sacrificed to the heroes Andocrates, Leucon, Pisandrus, Damocrates, Hypsion, Actaeon, and Polyidus; and that they risked a battle on their own territory in the plain of the Eleusinian goddesses Demeter and Kore. This oracle was reported to Aristides, who found it bewildering in the extreme. Certainly, the heroes to whom he was ordered to sacrifice were founders of Plataea, and the cave of the nymphs of Sphragis was situated on one of the peaks of Cithaeron, facing the point on the horizon where the sun sets in summer. In the past this cave was said to have contained an oracle, and many of the inhabitants nearby became possessed of oracular powers and were known as nympholepti, or nymph-possessed. But the mention of the plain of Demeter of Eleusis, and the promise of victory to the Athenians if they fought a battle on their own soil appeared to summon them back to Attica and transfer the seat of the war there.
At this point the Plataean commander, Arimnestus, had a dream, in which he was questioned by Zeus the Deliverer as to what the Greeks had decided to do, and he replied: ‘Tomorrow, Lord, we shall lead our army back to Eleusis and fight it out with the Persians there, as the Delphic oracle has commanded us.’ At this the god declared that they had missed the whole meaning of the oracle, for the places which it mentioned were all in the neighbourhood of Plataea, and they would find them if only they searched. All this was revealed so clearly to Arimnestus that as soon as he awoke, he sent for the oldest and most experienced of his fellow-countrymen. When he had discussed his dream and questioned them, he discovered that under Mount Cithaeron near Hysiae there was a very ancient temple dedicated to the Eleusinian goddesses, Demeter and Kore. He at once took Aristides with him and led him to the place, which offered an excellent position in which to station a body of heavy infantry against a force that was superior in cavalry, since the spurs of Cithaeron, where they adjoin the temple and run down into the plain, make the ground impassable for cavalry. Close by, too, stood the shrine of the hero Androcrates in the midst of a thick and shady grove. Finally, to make sure that the conditions for victory which the oracle had mentioned should be fulfilled in every detail, Arimnestus put forward a motion, which the Plataeans then passed, that they should remove their boundary stones on the side facing Attica, and give this territory to the Athenians, to enable them to fight in defence of Greece on their own soil, as the oracle had laid down.
This noble gesture on the Plataeans’ part became so famous that, many years later, when Alexander had become the ruler of Asia,1 he rebuilt the walls of Plataea and had it proclaimed by herald at the Olympic games that the king conferred this honour upon the Plataeans for their bravery and generosity in freely giving up their territory to the Greeks in the Persian wars, and thus showing themselves the most ardent of all peoples in the common cause.
12. The Tegean contingent quarrelled with the Athenians about their position in the line of battle. They claimed that, according to precedent, as the Spartans had occupied the right wing, it was their privilege to be posted on the left and they invoked the great exploits of their ancestors to support their argument. These pretensions annoyed the Athenians, but Aristides came forward and spoke out as follows: ‘This is not the moment to argue with the Tegeans about matters of ancestry and personal courage. All that we wish to say to you Spartans and to the rest of the Greeks is that a man’s place in the battle line neither gives him courage nor takes it away. Whatever position you give us, we shall try to hold it with honour and bring no disgrace upon the record we have earned on the battle field up to this day. We did not come here to quarrel with our allies, but to fight our enemies, not to boast about our ancestors, but to show our courage in defence of Greece. This battle will prove clearly enough how much any city or general or private soldier is worth to Greece.’ When they heard this speech, the generals and other members of the council of war decided in the Athenians’ favour and posted them on the left wing.
13. While the cause of Greece still hung in the balance and Athens above all was in mortal danger, some of the richest Athenians, who were members of the leading families but had been impoverished by the war, saw that they had lost not only their wealth but all their influence and prestige in the city, and that the positions of power and honour were now held by others. They therefore met in secret in a certain house in Plataea and plotted to overthrow the democracy, or if they could not achieve this, to harm the Greek cause in every possible way and betray it to the barbarians.
By the time that Aristides learned of it, the conspiracy had begun to spread through the camp and many men had already been won over. He feared that matters had now reached a critical point and decided that he could neither ignore the plot nor yet expose it completely, since there was no knowing how many people might be implicated if the inquiry were to proceed strictly along the lines that justice demanded and regardless of expediency. He therefore arrested eight or so of the many conspirators. Two of these, who were the first to be formally accused and who were also the most deeply implicated, Aeschines of Lamptrae and Agesias of Acharnae, succeeded in escaping from the camp. The remainder he released, so as to give those who still believed they were unsuspected a chance to take courage and repent. He also hinted that the war offered them, as it were, a great tribunal, in which they could clear themselves of the charges against them by showing that their intentions towards their country were honest and just.
14. After this Mardonius tested the strength of the Greeks with the arm he believed to be his strongest, by sending his entire force of cavalry to attack them in their camp, where all of them, except for the Megarians, were occupying strong positions on rocky ground at the foot of Cithaeron. The Megarians, who numbered 3,000, were stationed the nearest to the open plain, and for this reason they suffered severely from the cavalry attacks, which broke upon them in wave after wave from all sides. They therefore sent a messenger urgently to Pausanias demanding immediate help, as they could not hold out unsupported against the immense numbers of the barbarians. Pausanias, when this news reached him, saw at once that the Megarian camp was almost blotted out of sight under the hail of the enemy’s javelins and arrows and that its defenders were huddled together in a confined space. He himself was powerless to help them against cavalry, since his Spartan contingent was heavily armoured and slow in movement, but he put the Megarians’ plight before the other Greek generals and commanders who were with him, as a challenge to their ambition and warlike spirit, and appealed for volunteers to fight off the enemy and rescue the Megarians. The rest all hesitated, but Aristides undertook on the Athenians’ behalf to carry out the task and dispatched Olympiodorus, the bravest of his officers, with the 300 picked men he commanded and some archers in support.
The Athenians formed up quickly and went into the attack at a run. The commander of the barbarians’ cavalry was Masistius, a man possessed of legendary courage and an exceptionally powerful and handsome physique, who, as soon as he saw the Athenians coming, wheeled his horse and rode to attack them. There followed a tremendous struggle as the two forces met at the charge, since both treated this clash as the crucial encounter of the whole battle. At length Masistius’s horse was wounded by an arrow and threw its rider, who lay where he fell. He could not get to his feet because of the weight of his armour, but neither could the Athenians dispatch him – since not only his chest but also his head and limbs were encased in gold and bronze and iron – even though they threw themselves upon him and hacked at his body. But at last he was killed when a soldier drove the point of his javelin through the eye-hole of his helmet, and the rest of the Persians abandoned his body and fled. The Greeks discovered the real importance of their success not from the number of the dead, which was small, but from the grief the barbarians displayed. They shaved off their own hair in mourning for Masistius and cut off the manes of their horses and mules, and their cries and lamentations filled the whole plain, for they felt they had lost a man who for his valour and authority was second only to Mardonius.
15. After this cavalry action there was no more fighting for a long time, for the priests had prophesied from their sacrifices to each side alike that they would win a victory if they remained on the defensive, but would be defeated if they attacked. At last Mardonius found that he had provisions only for a few days more, while the strength of the Greek army continued to grow as fresh reinforcements arrived, and his patience became exhausted; he decided then that he would wait no longer, but would cross the Asopus at first light and make a surprise attack on the Greeks, and that evening he gave the order to his commanders.
But towards midnight a solitary horseman quietly rode up to the Greek camp. He reached the outposts and requested them to call Aristides, who was quickly fetched, whereupon the visitor told him: ‘I am Alexander the Macedonian, and I have come out of goodwill to you at the risk of my life to prevent you from becoming demoralized or fighting at a disadvantage through being taken by surprise. Mardonius intends to attack tomorrow, but the reason is not that he is full of hope or confident of success, but that he is running short of supplies. In fact his soothsayers are trying to prevent him from fighting by means of unfavourable sacrifices and prophecies, and the army is disheartened and unsure of itself. He is forced to act boldly and put his fortune to the test, or else, if he does nothing, to see his men reduced to starvation.’ Alexander then begged Aristides to keep what he had heard to himself, to remember his words, but not to confide them to a soul. Aristides, however, told him that it would not be right to conceal this intelligence from Pausanias, since the supreme authority rested with him, but that it could be kept secret from the other generals; on the other hand, if the Greeks were victorious, everybody should be told of Alexander’s courage and enterprise. After this exchange the king of the Macedonians rode back again, and Aristides went to Pausanias’s tent and told him all that had passed between them. They then sent for the other generals and gave them orders to keep the troops standing to, as a battle was expected.
16. At this point, so Herodotus tells us,1 Pausanias sent word to Aristides to transfer the Athenians to the right wing, so as to face the Persians; they would fight better there, he argued, since they already had experience of Persian tactics and enjoyed the confidence of having already defeated them once, while the left wing, where the renegade Greek allies were to attack, should be entrusted to him.
The rest of the Athenian commanders thought this a particularly galling and ill-judged order on Pausanias’s part, to leave the rest of the line as it was, while he moved the Athenians – and nobody else – back and forth as if they were so many Helots, and finally to station them opposite the enemy’s best troops. But Aristides told them they were quite wrong. They had just been quarrelling with the Tegeans for the honour of occupying the left wing and had been full of pride when they were given precedence; now when the Spartans of their own free will were making way for them on the right wing, and in a sense offering them the place of honour, they did not welcome the distinction that was being held out to them, nor see what an advantage it was to fight against the barbarians, who were their natural enemies, rather than against men of their own race and blood. When they heard this, the Athenians gladly changed places with the Spartans, and the word spread through their ranks that the enemy they were to meet would have no better arms nor stouter hearts than those who had fought at Marathon. They had the same bows and arrows, the same embroidered clothing and gold ornaments to cover soft bodies and faint hearts, while the Athenians were armed not only with the same weapons and limbs as on that day, but with the bolder spirit which is born of victory. They had this advantage, too, that they were fighting not only for their country and their city as their comrades had done before them, but also for the trophies they had set up at Marathon and Salamis, and they intended the world to know that even these triumphs were not due to Miltiades alone or to good fortune, but to the people of Athens.
The Spartans and Athenians then hurried to exchange their positions, but the Thebans learned of this move through deserters and told Mardonius. So, either because he was afraid of the Athenians or else was ambitious to engage the Spartans at once, he switched his Persian troops to the right wing and ordered the Greek contingents in his army to form up opposite the Athenians. When this change in the enemy’s order of battle became apparent, Pausanias moved back and occupied the right wing, whereupon Mardonius re-formed his left wing to face the Spartans, as it had done originally. In this way the day ended without any further action. The Greeks now decided after a council of war to shift their camp farther away and occupy a position that was better supplied with water, as the springs in their neighbourhood had been fouled and rendered unusable by the barbarians’ superior cavalry.
17. When it grew dark, the generals started out to lead their troops to the place selected for the new camp. The soldiers, however, were not at all willing to follow them in close order, but as soon as they had left their first line of entrenchments, most of them made for the town of Plataea, and there was great confusion as they proceeded to scatter and pitch their tents at random. It so happened that the Spartans, much against their will, were left behind by themselves. One of their officers was Amompharetus, a man of fierce courage and a fire-eater who had long been spoiling for action, and was thoroughly out of patience with the innumerable postponements and delays. He now denounced this change of position as nothing more than a cowardly scuttle and declared that he would not budge from his post, but would stay there with his company and wait for Mardonius’s attack. When Pausanias came up and told him that this move had been formally voted and decreed by the war council of the Greeks, Amompharetus picked up a great stone and flung it down at Pausanias’s feet. ‘That is my vote for battle,’ he said, ‘and you can leave me out of your miserable discussions and motions!’ Pausanias did not know what to do, so finally he sent word to the Athenians, who were just then moving off, and begged them to wait and march at the same time as himself, and he then started to lead the rest of his force towards Plataea, hoping that in this way he would force Amompharetus to move.
Meanwhile it had begun to grow light, and Mardonius, who had discovered that the Greeks had evacuated their camp, now advanced in battle order and bore down on the Spartans with a tremendous shouting and clashing of arms on the barbarians’ part, as if it were not a matter of fighting a battle, but merely of sweeping away the Greeks as they fled, and this, in fact, was very nearly what happened. Pausanias, when he recognized the Persians’ intention, halted his march and ordered his men into battle formation, but either because he was angry with Amompharetus, or else through sheer confusion at the speed of the attack, he forgot to give the signal to the rest of the Greeks. For this reason they did not hurry up to his support at once or in regular formation, but came straggling along in small groups after the battle had already begun.
Pausanias offered sacrifice to the gods, but since he received no favourable omens, he ordered the Spartans to sit quiet, with their shields planted in the ground in front of them and to wait for his orders without attempting to resist, while he sacrificed again. By now the Persian cavalry had started to charge, and soon they were within bowshot and the Spartans began to be hit by their arrows. It was then that Callicrates, who was reputed to be the handsomest and the tallest man in the Greek army, was struck by an arrow. As he lay dying, he declared that he did not grieve at his death, since he had left his home to die for Greece, but at dying without exchanging a single blow with the enemy. The troops were, indeed, suffering terribly, but their discipline was wonderful. They made no attempt to beat off the enemy who were attacking them, but simply waited for the word from their god and their general, while they were shot and struck down at their posts.
Some writers tell us that while Pausanias was sacrificing and praying at a little distance from the battle-line, a number of Lydians suddenly attacked him, snatching up and scattering the offerings for the sacrifice, and that Pausanias and his attendants beat them off with the sacrificial staves and whips; it is in imitation of this attack that they celebrate in Sparta to this day the ceremony of whipping young men round the altar and the procession of the Lydians which follows it.
18. Then Pausanias, almost in despair at what was happening, as the prophet sacrificed victim after victim, turned towards the temple of Hera with tears in his eyes and, lifting up his hands to heaven, prayed to Hera of Cithaeron and the other protecting deities of Plataea, that if it were not the gods’ will that the Greeks should conquer, they might at least do some great deed before they fell and prove to their enemies that they had taken the field against brave men who knew how to fight. While Pausanias was imploring the gods, in the very midst of his prayer, the sacrifices were discovered to be favourable and the seer prophesied victory. The order was passed along the line to prepare for action, and suddenly there came over the whole phalanx the look of some ferocious beast, as it wheels at bay, stiffens its bristles and turns to defend itself, so that the barbarians could no longer doubt that they were faced with men who would fight to the death. The Persians therefore set up their great wicker shields like a wall in front of them and shot arrows at their opponents. But the Spartans, keeping their shields locked edge to edge as they advanced, threw themselves upon the enemy, wrenched away their wicker shields, and then thrust with their long spears at the faces and breasts of the Persians and slaughtered them in great numbers. In spite of this the Persians fought bravely and skilfully before they fell. They seized the long spears of the Greeks with their bare hands, snapped many of them off, and then closed in to fierce hand-to-hand fighting, using their daggers and scimitars, tearing away their enemies’ shields and grappling with them, and in this way they held out for a long time.
Meanwhile the Athenians had been quietly waiting for the Spartans. But when the loud shouts of men locked in battle fell on their ears, and a messenger arrived from Pausanias, so it is said, telling them what had happened, they hurried up to reinforce him. Then, as they were crossing the plain towards the noise of the battle, the renegade Greeks advanced towards them. As soon as Aristides caught sight of them, he went on far ahead and called out in a loud voice, appealing to them in the name of the gods of Greece. He urged that they should stay out of the battle and not oppose or hinder the Athenians on their way to help men who were risking their lives for their country’s sake. However, when he saw that they were taking no notice, but had already formed up for battle, he turned aside from the attempt to relieve the Spartans and engaged the Greeks, who numbered some fifty thousand. The greater part of their force at once gave way and retired, especially when they saw that the barbarians were also in retreat. Here the heaviest of the fighting is said to have been with the Thebans, whose leading and most influential citizens had at that time enthusiastically taken the Persian side and had carried the people with them, not of their own free will, but because they were ruled by an oligarchy.
19. The battle was thus divided into two parts. The Spartans were the first to rout the Persians. Mardonius was killed by a Spartan named Arimnestus, who crushed in his head with a stone, just as the oracle at the shrine of Amphiaraüs had prophesied to him. Mardonius had sent a Lydian to this oracle and also a Carian to the oracle of Trophonius. The latter was actually addressed by the prophet in the Carian tongue, but the Lydian, when he lay down to sleep in the sacred enclosure which surrounds the temple of Apollo, dreamed that one of the god’s attendants stood at his side and commanded him to be gone, and when he refused, hurled down a great stone on his head, so that in his dream he was killed by the blow. This is the story which is told of Mardonius. The Spartans also drove the Persians, who were now in utter rout, to take refuge inside their wooden stockade.
Not long after this, the Athenians overcame the Thebans and killed 300 of their leading citizens in the action itself. They might have killed more, but just as the Thebans were in headlong retreat, a messenger reached the Athenians telling them that the barbarian army was shut up and surrounded inside its fortified camp. So they allowed the Greeks to escape and themselves marched to help assault the camp. Here they found that the Spartans, who were inexperienced at attacking fortifications, were making slow progress, and they proceeded to storm the camp with an immense slaughter of the enemy. It is said that out of 300,000 men only 40,000 escaped with Artabazus. On the Greek side 1,360 were killed. Of these fifty-two were Athenians, all belonging to the tribe of Aiantis, according to Cleidemus, and it was this tribe which fought most bravely. For this reason the Aiantids used to sacrifice regularly to the nymphs of Sphragis the offerings which the Pythian oracle at Delphi had demanded in return for the victory, and which were paid for out of the public funds. Ninety-one of the dead came from Sparta and sixteen from Tegea.
It is therefore very surprising that Herodotus should assert that these contingents, from Athens, Sparta, and Tegea, were the only Greeks who actually came to grips with the enemy and that none of the rest took part, for both the number of those who fell and the monuments which were erected over them are proofs that the victory was won by the combined action of all the Greeks. Besides, if the men of these three cities alone had fought, while the rest sat by and did nothing, the altar would not have been inscribed as it was:
Here did the Greeks, when with Ares’ aid they had triumphed in battle, Driven the Mede from their frontiers and delivered their country from
bondage,
Set up an altar together for Zeus, Liberator of Greece.
This battle was fought on the fourth day of the month Boedromion according to the Athenian reckoning. But according to the Boeotian calendar it was on the twenty-seventh day of the month Panemus,1 and on this day the Hellenic council still meets at Plataea and the Plataeans offer a sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator for the victory. We need not be surprised at the discrepancy between these dates, since even nowadays, when there is a far more accurate knowledge of astronomy, different cities still begin and end their months on different days.
20. After the battle the Athenians would not agree to award the prize for valour to the Spartans, or allow them to put up a general trophy. In fact, the cause of Greece might very well have been ruined there and then by the two parties going to war to settle their quarrel, had not Aristides by dint of a great deal of explanation and pacification restrained his colleagues, especially Leocrates and Myronides, and persuaded them to submit the dispute for the rest of the Greeks to decide. Upon this a council was held and Theogeiton the Megarian said that if they wanted to avoid all the turmoil of a civil war, the prize must be given to some third city. Then Cleocritus the Corinthian rose to speak and everybody supposed that he would claim the honour for Corinth, since Corinth was ranked next in prestige after Sparta and Athens. However, to the general surprise and delight, he spoke in favour of the Plataeans and argued that to give them the prize would remove every possible cause of friction, since neither of the claimants could take offence at their being honoured. Aristides was the first to accept this proposal on behalf of the Athenians and Pausanias followed suit for the Spartans. Having settled their differences in this way, they put aside eighty talents of the spoils for the Plataeans, with which they rebuilt the sanctuary of Athena, set up the shrine and decorated the temple with frescoes which have remained in perfect condition to this day. The Spartans then set up a trophy for themselves, while the Athenians set up a separate one.
When they inquired of the oracle at Delphi as to what sacrifice should be made, the Pythian god answered that they should set up an altar to Zeus the Liberator, but should not sacrifice on it until they had extinguished throughout the land the fire, which he said had been polluted by the barbarians, and had rekindled it, fresh and pure from the public altar at Delphi. Accordingly, the Greek commanders travelled round the territory of Plataea and compelled all those who were using fire to put it out. Meanwhile, Euchidas, who promised to fetch the fire with the utmost speed, went from Plataea to Delphi. There he purified his body by sprinkling himself with holy water and was crowned with laurel. Then he took the sacred fire from the altar and set out to run back to Plataea; he arrived there before sunset, having covered 125 miles in a single day. He embraced his fellow-citizens, handed them the sacred fire, and then at once collapsed and a little afterwards died. In token of their admiration the Plataeans buried him in the sanctuary of Artemis Eucleia and carved this verse in tetrameters on his tomb:
Euchidas, who ran to Delphi, came back here the self-same day.
Most people believe that Eucleia is the goddess Artemis and address her by that name. But there are some who say that she was the child of Heracles and of that Myrto who was the daughter of Menoetius and sister of Patroclus, and that she died a virgin and was worshipped by the Boeotians and Locrians. An altar and a statue dedicated to her stand in every market-place, and couples who are about to marry offer sacrifice to her.
21. After this at a general assembly of the Greeks Aristides moved a resolution that delegates and religious representatives from all the Greek states should meet every year at Plataea, and that every four years the Eleutheria, or festival games in honour of freedom, should be celebrated. There was also to be a levy to raise a combined Greek force consisting of 10,000 infantry, 1,000 horse and 100 ships to carry on the war against the barbarians, but the Plataeans were to be exempted and treated as a dedicated and sacrosanct people, who would offer sacrifice to Zeus the Deliverer on behalf of all Greece.
These proposals were ratified, and the Plataeans undertook to offer up a sacrifice to the dead every year in honour of those Greeks who had fallen in battle and were buried on the field, and this ceremony they still carry out to this day in the following manner. On the sixteenth day of the month Maimacterion, which is the Boeotian Alalcomenius, they conduct a procession. This is led forth at daybreak by a trumpeter who sounds the charge: after him come waggons full of myrtle leaves and garlands, and then a black bull. These are followed by young men of free birth who carry libations of wine and milk in jars and pitchers of olive-oil and myrrh, and no slave is allowed to play any part in the ceremony, since the men who are being honoured gave their lives for freedom. Last of all comes the chief magistrate of Plataea, who for the rest of his term of office is forbidden to touch iron or to wear clothes of any colour but white, but on this occasion is dressed in a scarlet tunic. He carries aloft an urn from the public record office and proceeds, sword in hand, through the middle of the city to the tombs. There with his own hands he takes water from the sacred spring, washes the gravestones, and anoints them with myrrh. Then he slaughters the bull by the funeral pyre, offers prayers to Zeus and to Hermes of the Underworld, and calls upon the brave men who died for Greece to come to the banquet and drink the libations of blood. After this he mixes a bowl of wine and water, drinks and pours a libation from it, saying these words: ‘I drink to the men who died for the freedom of Greece.’ These rites have been observed by the Plataeans down to the present day.
22. After the Athenians had returned home, it became clear to Aristides that they wanted to adopt the democratic form of government. Because of the bravery the people had shown he believed that their wishes deserved to be considered, and he understood at the same time that they were now strongly armed, were full of confidence from their victories and would not easily be turned from their purpose. So he introduced a decree1 whereby every citizen would have a share in the government and the archons would in future be elected from the whole body of voters.
Themistocles once announced to the people that he had a plan which would prove of great advantage to the state and ensure its security, but which could not be discussed openly. So the Assembly ruled that the scheme should be confided to Aristides alone and that he should give his verdict on it. Themistocles then told Aristides that his proposal was to burn the naval station of the allied Greek fleet: in this way Athens would become the most powerful state in Greece and could dominate all the rest. Aristides then came before the Assembly and pronounced that nothing could be more advantageous than Themistocles’ proposal, and nothing more iniquitous, and when they heard this the Athenians ordered Themistocles to abandon his scheme. Such was the measure of the people’s regard for justice and also of Aristides’ loyal and faithful service to them.
23. When he was sent out as general with Cimon to carry on the war with Persia,2 he noticed how harshly and offensively Pausanias and the other Spartan commanders behaved to the allies. He himself treated them with courtesy and consideration and saw to it that Cimon made himself accommodating to them and took part in their operations. In this way, before the Spartans knew it, he had eased them out of the leadership, and he did this not with the help of troops or ships or cavalry, but through tact and diplomacy. The Athenians were already well liked, thanks to the justice of Aristides and the affability shown by Cimon, but the grasping and overbearing conduct of Pausanias served to endear them to the Greeks even more. The allied commanders were constantly treated with arrogance and ill-temper by Pausanias, and their men were punished with floggings or by being forced to stand all day with an iron anchor on their shoulders. No one was allowed to get straw for bedding, or fodder for his horse, or to draw water until the Spartans had helped themselves, and their servants, who were armed with whips, would drive away anyone who approached. Aristides once intended to tax Pausanias with this and expostulate with him, but he put on a frown, told Aristides that he was occupied and refused to listen to him.
After this the generals and admirals of the Greek expedition, especially those of Chios, Samos, and Lesbos, approached Aristides and pressed him to accept the supreme command and rally around him the allies who had long wished to be quit of Sparta and to transfer their support to Athens. Aristides told them that he regarded their proposals as both necessary and just, but that to secure the Athenians’ confidence some action was needed which would make it impossible for the majority to change their allegiance later on. Accordingly, Uliades of Samos and Antagoras of Chios arranged matters between themselves and ran down Pausanias’s trireme off Byzantium, closing in on it as it was sailing ahead of the line. When Pausanias saw this, he sprang up in fury and threatened that he would soon show the world that what these men had damaged was not his ship but their own cities. They told him to go his way and be thankful for the fortune which had fought on his side at Plataea, for it was only out of reverence for this that the Greeks did not punish him as he deserved. Finally they stood off and sailed away to join the Athenians.
In this situation the Spartans gave an extraordinary demonstration of their greatness of spirit. When they saw that their leaders’ heads had been turned by the immense powers entrusted to them, they voluntarily withdrew from the supreme command and ceased to send generals to carry on the war, preferring to have their citizens behave with moderation and abide by their traditional customs, instead of lording it over the rest of Greece.
24. Even at the beginning, while the Spartans were in command, the Greeks had made a certain contribution towards the war, but now they wanted each city to be assessed at a fair rate. So they applied to the Athenians for the services of Aristides and appointed him to survey the various territories and their revenues, and then to fix their contributions according to each member’s worth and ability to pay. But, although he was invested with such wide powers, and although Greece put its entire property, as it were, into his hands, he went out on his mission1 a poor man and came back poorer still, and he drew up the list of assessments not only with scrupulous integrity and justice, but also in such a way that all the states felt they had been appropriately and satisfactorily dealt with. Just as the ancients used to sing the praises of the age of Cronos and call it the golden age, so did the Athenians’ allies honour this levy of Aristides, and call it a blessed event for Greece: they must have felt this all the more, when not long afterwards the levy was doubled and later trebled. The tax which Aristides imposed amounted to 460 talents,1 but Pericles must have increased this by almost one third, for Thucydides tells us that when the Peloponnesian war began, the Athenians had a revenue of 600 talents from their allies.2 After Pericles died, the demagogues gradually increased it to a total of 1,300 talents. The reason for this was not so much that the war, because of its length and its various changes of fortune, became prodigiously expensive, as that the demagogues themselves had led the people into accepting doles, money for public entertainments and the erection of temples and statues.
In this way Aristides earned a great and almost legendary reputation for the assessment of the revenues. Themistocles, however, is said to have sneered at him and remarked that all this was no praise for a man, but rather for a money-box. But this was no more than a clumsy retort to a saying of Aristides’, who, when Themistocles had given his opinion that the greatest virtue in a general is the power to recognize and anticipate the enemy’s intentions, had answered: ‘Certainly you cannot do without that, Themistocles, but the honourable thing and the quality which makes a real general is the power to keep his hands clean.’
25. It was Aristides who made all the Greeks swear to maintain the alliance against the Persians, and he himself took the oath for Athens and to solemnize it threw wedges of red-hot iron3 into the sea. But later on, when circumstances compelled the Athenians to rule with a stronger hand, he told his countrymen to act in whatever way suited their interests best and to lay the blame for any breach of their oath upon him. In general, as Theophrastus tells us, Aristides was scrupulously fair in his private dealings and relations with his fellow-citizens, but in public affairs he often followed whatever policy his country had adopted, recognizing that this must involve a good deal of injustice on occasion. He mentions, for example, that when, on the motion of the Samians, the question of transferring the funds of the confederacy from Delos to Athens – which was contrary to the terms of the alliance – was being debated, Aristides said that the proposal was unjust, but that it was to Athens’ advantage. And yet this man who finally established the sovereignty of his city over so many Greeks himself remained in a state of poverty, and indeed continued to prize his reputation as a poor man as much as any distinction he had won from his triumphs in the field. This fact is evident from the following story.
Callias, the Torchbearer1 in the Eleusinian Mysteries, who was related to him, was being prosecuted by his enemies on a capital charge. At first his accusers stated their case in moderate terms, but then they stepped right outside the scope of their indictment and appealed to the jury as follows: ‘You know Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, and how he is the admiration of all Greece. How do you suppose he lives at home, when you see him coming into the Assembly with the threadbare cloak he wears? Is it not likely that a man who shivers in public also goes hungry in his own house and cannot afford even the bare necessities of life? But Callias, who is the richest man in Athens, allows his own cousin, to say nothing of his wife and children, to suffer want, although he has often made use of Aristides and profited from his influence with you.’ Callias saw that this appeal had made a deep impression on the jury and had gone far to turn them against him. So he called Aristides into court and demanded that he should testify that although Callias had frequently offered him help and pressed him to accept it, he had always refused and replied that he had better cause to be proud of his poverty than Callias of his wealth. There were plenty of rich men to be seen who used their money well or badly, but it was not easy to find a man who could support poverty with honour. In fact, the only people who should be ashamed of poverty are those who are poor against their will. When Aristides had confirmed Callias’s evidence, there was not one of his audience who did not leave the court feeling that he would rather be poor with Aristides than rich with Callias. This, at any rate, is the story which Aeschines the Socratic has recorded. Plato, too, gives his opinion that of all the men who enjoyed great names and reputations at Athens, Aristides is the only one who deserves our praise. Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles, he tells us, filled the city with colonnades and treasures and all kinds of nonsense, but Aristides tried to lead the city to virtue.1
There is no stronger proof of his fairmindedness than his treatment of Themistocles. Themistocles had been his enemy at almost every stage of his political career, and Aristides’ ostracism was directly due to his efforts. Yet when Themistocles was publicly accused and his opponent had the chance to turn the tables, Aristides bore him no malice. In fact, when Alcmaeon and Cimon and many others joined in denouncing and prosecuting him, Aristides was the only man who neither did nor said anything mean, and just as earlier he had never grudged his success, so now he refused to take advantage of his enemy’s downfall.
26. Some writers say that Aristides died2 in Pontus, where he had sailed on an expedition in the public service, and others that he died of old age in Athens, honoured and admired by his countrymen. But Craterus the Macedonian tells us something like this about his last days. After Themistocles had gone into exile, he says, the people became unruly and there sprang up a host of informers who constantly attacked the most gifted and influential citizens and worked up the envy of the masses against them, now that the people’s heads had been turned by their power and prosperity. Even Aristides became one of their victims, and he was prosecuted on a charge of bribery by a certain Diophantus of the deme of Amphitrope and convicted of having received money from the Ionians while he was settling their tax-assessments. As he could not pay the fine of fifty minae, he sailed from Athens and died somewhere in Ionia. On the other hand Craterus offers no documentary evidence of this, neither the sentence of the court nor the decree of the people, although it is his usual habit to record such matters very carefully and to quote his authorities. Here I may mention that all the other writers who have described the injustices suffered by the leading men of Athens at the hands of the people dwell upon the banishment of Themistocles, the imprisonment of Miltiades, the fine imposed on Pericles, and Paches’ death in the court-room – he killed himself on the rostrum when the verdict was pronounced against him. They group many such instances together and include among them the ostracism of Aristides, but they make no mention of this conviction for bribery.
27. Besides this, his tomb is still to be seen at Phalerum and the tradition is that it was built at the public expense, since Aristides did not leave enough money even to pay for his funeral. It is also said that the state paid for his daughters to be married from the Prytaneum and voted 3,000 drachmae outright to each daughter as a dowry. His son, Lysimachus, was provided for in a bill introduced by Alcibiades, which presented him with 100 minae in silver, the same number of acres of vineyard, and a pension of four drachmae a day. Besides this Callisthenes tells us that Lysimachus left a daughter, Polycrite, and the people voted her a daily allowance of food, in the same way as they did for victors at the Olympic Games.
Demetrius of Phalerum, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the musician and Aristotle, assuming that the treatise On Nobility of Birth is a genuine work of his, also tell us that Myrto, Aristides’ grand-daughter, lived in the house of Socrates the philosopher. He was, in fact, married to another woman, but he took Myrto into his household because she was almost destitute and her poverty forced her to remain a widow. However, Panaetius has disposed of this story effectively enough in his book on Socrates.
Demetrius of Phalerum in his book on Socrates writes that he remembers a descendant of Aristides named Lysimachus, who was extremely poor and who used to sit by the temple known as the Iaccheium, making a living by means of a tablet which he claimed could interpret dreams. Demetrius persuaded the people to pass a decree awarding this man’s mother and sister a pension of three obols a day, though he says that later, when he became sole Lawgiver himself, he allowed a drachma a day to each of the women instead of three obols.
We need not be surprised to hear that the people took such care of families living in Athens. We read, for example, that when they learned that Aristogeiton’s grand-daughter was living in humble circumstances in Lemnos and was so poor that nobody would marry her, the people brought her back to Athens, arranged a marriage with a man of good family and gave her the estate in Potamus for her dowry. The city of Athens has given many such examples of humanity and goodness of heart even in my own day, and for this she is justly praised and admired.