Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Aristides, whose father was Lysimachus, belonged to the deme Alopece and the tribe Antiochis. Concerning his property there have been differing accounts, some saying that he lived out his life in unremitting poverty, and that after his death he left behind two daughters who for a long time went unbetrothed because of their want;
but opposing this account, which has been stated by many, Demetrius of Phalerum, in his Socrates, says that he knows a plot of land at Phalerum that belonged to Aristides, in which he is buried, and he takes as proofs of the prosperity of his household, first, the eponymous archonship, which was held by whoever was chosen by lot from among the clans possessing the greatest property assessments, whom they called the Five-Hundred-Bushel men, and second, his ostracism;
for ostracism was brought upon no poor man, but upon those from great houses and men resented for the weight of their lineage; and third and last, that he left behind, as offerings for a victory, choregic tripods in the precinct of Dionysus, which were still to be seen in our own time, preserving an inscription of this kind: 'The tribe Antiochis was victorious, Aristides was choregos, Archestratus trained the chorus.'
This last point, though it seems the strongest, is actually the weakest. For Epaminondas too, whom all men know to have been raised in great poverty and to have lived in it, and Plato the philosopher, undertook not undistinguished choregic productions, the one for men flute-players, the other for boys in the cyclic chorus, the expense for the latter being supplied by Dion the Syracusan, and for Epaminondas by those around Pelopidas.
For good men do not wage an unheralded and truceless war against gifts from friends; rather, they consider mean and low those gifts directed toward hoarding and greed, but do not repel those which involve some unprofitable ambition and splendor. Panaetius, however, concerning the tripod, points out
that Demetrius has been misled by two men sharing one name; for between the Persian Wars and the close of the war with the Peloponnesians, the records credit only two men named Aristides with a choregic victory, and neither one is the son of Lysimachus — one was Xenophilus's son, while the other lived much later, as the lettering of the inscription shows, belonging to the style current after Eucleides; Archestratus too is named there, though no source lists him as chorus-trainer during the Persian Wars, while many do so for the Peloponnesian War.
Well then, whether the point of Panaetius is the better one is a matter to be examined further. But ostracism fell upon every man who was thought, through reputation or birth or power of speech, to be above the many; wherefore even Damon, the teacher of Pericles, because he was thought to be somehow exceptional in his intelligence,
was ostracized. And moreover, that Aristides held office not by lot but by the choice of the Athenians, Idomeneus says. And if he truly held that office even after the fighting at Plataea — a claim Demetrius himself sets down in writing — then it is entirely believable that, on account of such great reputation and such mighty achievements, he was deemed worthy through excellence of that office which others obtained by lot through wealth.
But in truth Demetrius is plainly eager, not only for Aristides but for Socrates too, to rescue them from poverty as from some great evil; for he says that Socrates too possessed not only his house, but also seventy minae out on loan through Crito.
Aristides, having become a companion of Cleisthenes, who established the constitution after the tyrants, and having emulated and admired above all statesmen Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian, laid hold of an aristocratic form of government, and had ranged against him, on behalf of the people, Themistocles son of Neocles. Some indeed say that, as boys reared together from the beginning, in every matter both serious and playful, in deed and in word, they were at variance with one another,
and that their natures were laid bare at once by that rivalry, the one being facile and reckless and cunning, and carried easily and sharply toward everything, the other being founded on a steady character and set unbendingly toward what is just, and not admitting falsehood or buffoonery or deceit even in any playful manner. But Ariston of Ceos says their enmity arose from an erotic beginning and proceeded to such a pitch.
For there was Stesilaus, who was by birth a Cean, most brilliant by far in form and bodily beauty among those in their prime; both men, having fallen in love with him, bore the passion beyond measure, and did not set their competition aside even once the boy's beauty had faded; rather, having sharpened themselves through that very contest, they plunged straightaway into public affairs still inflamed and at odds with each other.
Now Themistocles, having thrown himself into a political faction, had it as a bulwark and a power not to be despised, so that even to the man who said he would rule the Athenians well, if only he were fair and impartial to all, he said, 'Never may I sit upon that throne on which my friends
shall have no more than strangers'; but Aristides walked, as it were, his own private road through politics, first because he did not wish to join in wrongdoing with his associates, or to be a source of grief by not gratifying them, and next, because he saw the power derived from friends emboldening not a few men to do wrong, and guarded against it, thinking that the good citizen ought to have confidence only in doing and saying what is honest and just.
Nevertheless, since Themistocles was stirring up much recklessly and setting himself against every policy of his and cutting it short, he too was compelled in some measure, partly defending himself, partly curbing that man's power as it grew through the favor of the multitude, to oppose what Themistocles was doing, thinking it better that the people should forgo some advantages than that that man should become strong through mastery in all things.
And finally, when on one occasion he had opposed Themistocles as he was doing something needful, and had prevailed, he could not hold himself back, and declared, on his way out of the assembly, that the Athenians' affairs would never be secure until both he and Themistocles were thrown into the pit. And again, having written some proposal to bring before the people, though there was opposition and rivalry against it, he was prevailing; but when the presiding officer was about to put it to the people for a vote, perceiving from their very words that it was inexpedient, he withdrew the decree.
And often he introduced his proposals through others, so that Themistocles might not, out of rivalry against him personally, be an obstacle to what was expedient. And a certain marvelous steadiness of his appeared amid the changes of political fortune, since he was neither elated by honors nor troubled and impatient at misfortunes, and he held alike that he ought to offer himself to his country not only in respect of money but also of reputation, serving in public life without fee and without reward.
Hence, it seems, when the iambic lines composed by Aeschylus concerning Amphiaraus were spoken in the theater — 'he does not wish to seem just, but to be so, reaping a deep furrow through his mind, from which good counsels spring' — all eyes turned upon Aristides, as though this excellence belonged to him most of all.
He was strongest in resisting, on behalf of justice, not only against goodwill and favor but also against anger and enmity. It is said, for instance, that once, prosecuting an enemy in court, when after the accusation the judges were unwilling to hear the man in danger, but were demanding the vote against him at once, he leapt up and joined in supplicating on behalf of the man being judged, that he might be heard and obtain his legal rights; and again, judging between two private citizens,
when the one said that his opponent had done much harm to Aristides, he said, 'Rather tell, good sir, what wrong he has done to you; for it is your case, not my own, that I am judging.' Having been chosen overseer of the public revenues, he showed that not only those in office in his own time, but also those who had held office before him, had embezzled much, and especially Themistocles: for he was a clever man, but not master of his hand.
Wherefore, gathering many men against Aristides in his audit of accounts, prosecuting him for theft, he wrapped him in conviction, as Idomeneus says. And when the foremost and best men in the city were indignant, he was not only released from the penalty, but was again appointed ruler over the same office. And pretending that he repented of his former conduct and giving himself over more mildly, he pleased those who were stealing the public funds, by not exposing them nor examining strictly,
so that, being glutted with public money, they extravagantly praised Aristides and courted the people on his behalf, being eager that he be chosen ruler again. But when they were about to vote, he rebuked the Athenians: 'When,' he said, 'I ruled you faithfully and honestly, I was abused; but now that I have let go much of the public funds to thieves, I seem to be a marvelous citizen.'
'I myself am ashamed at the present honor more than at the former condemnation, and I grieve for you, among whom it is more reputable to gratify rogues than to save the public funds.' Having said this, and having exposed the thefts, he silenced those who at that time had been shouting on his behalf and bearing witness, but won the true and just praise of the best men.
When Datis, sent by Darius, ostensibly to exact punishment upon the Athenians because they had burned Sardis, but in fact to subdue the Greeks, put in at Marathon with his whole fleet and was ravaging the country, among the ten generals whom the Athenians had chosen to conduct the war, Miltiades enjoyed the highest standing, with Aristides ranking second in reputation and influence.
And on that occasion, siding with Miltiades' opinion about the battle, he brought about no small turning of the scale; and though each general took the command in turn on alternating days, whenever his own turn arrived he yielded it to Miltiades, teaching his fellow commanders that to obey and follow those of good judgment is not shameful but honorable and safety-bringing. Thus, having soothed their rivalry and having persuaded them to be content in following one supreme judgment, he strengthened Miltiades, who became powerful through the undistracted exercise of authority. For each of them was now content to let his own day of command go, and attended upon Miltiades.
In the battle, since the center of the Athenian line labored most, and the barbarians resisted longest at that point, facing the tribes Leontis and Antiochis, where Themistocles and Aristides stood side by side and fought with distinction; for the one was of Leontis,
and the other of Antiochis; and when, having routed the barbarians, they had driven them into their ships, and saw them sailing not toward the islands, but forced by the wind and the sea inward toward Attica, fearing lest they should find the city empty of defenders, they hastened with nine of the tribes toward the city and reached it that same day;
but at Marathon, Aristides, having been left behind with his own tribe as guard of the captives and the spoils, lived up to his character fully — for even though gold and silver were piled everywhere in heaps, along with garments of all sorts and other wealth beyond counting scattered through the tents and the captured vessels, he neither wished to touch any of it himself nor permitted others to do so, apart from those who contrived to profit without his awareness; Callias the torchbearer was one of these.
For it seems that one of the barbarians fell at his feet, supposing him, because of his hair and headband, to be the king; and having done obeisance and taken hold of his right hand, he showed him a great quantity of gold buried in a certain pit. And Callias, who turned out to be as cruel and unprincipled as any man, seized the gold for himself, but slew the man so he could tell no one else of it. From this, they say, those from that household are called by the comic poets 'pit-rich,' mocking the place in which Callias found the gold.
Aristides straightway held the eponymous archonship. And yet Demetrius of Phalerum says that the man held office a little before his death, after the battle at Plataea. Yet in the archon lists, in the entry following Xanthippides — the year Mardonius was defeated at Plataea — no one has been able to turn up, despite an extensive search, even a namesake of Aristides; whereas after Phaenippus, in whose year they won the battle at Marathon, Aristides is straightway recorded as archon.
Of all his virtues, it was justice above all that made an impression on the many, because its usefulness is the most constant and the most common to all. Hence a poor man of the people acquired the most kingly and most divine
title, "the Just": a title none of the kings or tyrants ever coveted, but rather they delighted in being called Besiegers and Thunderbolts and Conquerors, and some Eagles and Hawks, loving, it seems, a reputation drawn from violence and power rather than one drawn from virtue. And yet the divine, with which they strive to associate and assimilate themselves, seems to differ in three things: incorruptibility, power, and virtue—of which virtue is the most solemn and the most divine.
For to be incorruptible belongs also to the void and to the elements, and great power belongs also to earthquakes and thunderbolts and rushes of wind and floods of rivers, but of justice and right nothing partakes except through thought and reason. Wherefore, of the three feelings which most people have toward the divine—emulation, fear, and honor—they seem to emulate and call the gods blessed on account of their incorruptibility and eternity, to be terrified and afraid on account of their lordship and power, but on account of their justice they cherish, honor, and hold them in reverence.
But although so disposed, they desire immortality, which our nature does not admit, and power, which for the most part lies in fortune, while virtue, which alone of divine goods is within our power, they set in the last place—thinking wrongly, since it is justice that makes a life lived in power and great fortune and rule divine, while injustice makes it bestial.
As for Aristides, it happened that though he was at first loved for his epithet, he later came to be envied, chiefly because Themistocles spread word among the many that Aristides, by judging and deciding everything himself, had done away with the courts, and had unnoticed set up for himself a monarchy without bodyguards; and already the people, grown proud over their victory and thinking themselves worthy of the greatest things, were vexed with those who had a name and reputation above the many.
And gathering into the city from every quarter, they ostracized Aristides, giving the name of fear of tyranny to their envy of his reputation. For ostracism was not a punishment for wrongdoing, but it was called, for the sake of decency, a humbling and curtailing of oppressive standing and power, though it was in fact a kindly assuaging of envy, aiming at nothing incurable, but only at a ten-year removal of the ill will felt toward the one who caused the vexation.
But when some began to bring in low and wicked men through this practice, they ceased after ostracizing Hyperbolus last of all. The story of why Hyperbolus was ostracized runs like this. Alcibiades and Nicias, who had the greatest power in the city, were at odds with each other. When the people were about to cast the ostraca and it was clear that they would inscribe one or the other of them, the two conferred with each other and, joining their two factions into one, contrived that Hyperbolus should be ostracized instead.
At this the people, indignant that the institution had been insulted and made a mockery of, abandoned it altogether and did away with it. The procedure was, to describe it in outline, of this sort. Each man took a shard, and having written on it the name of whichever citizen he wished removed, carried it to a single spot in the marketplace fenced round in a circle with barriers.
First the archons tallied up how many shards had been cast in all; and if fewer than six thousand had voted, the ostracism did not stand. Then, setting each of the names apart by itself, they proclaimed banished for ten years the one written by the most, he keeping the enjoyment of his property. So then, while the shards were being written at that time, it is said that one of the illiterate and altogether rustic men, handing his shard to Aristides as if to any chance person, asked him to write in "Aristides."
And Aristides, astonished, asked him whether Aristides had done him some wrong. "None," he said, "I don't even know the man, but everywhere I go people call him 'the Just,' and I'm sick of hearing it." Hearing this, Aristides made no reply, but wrote his own name on the shard and gave it back. Then, on his way out of the city, he raised his arms toward heaven and offered up a prayer that ran, it seems, contrary to Achilles' own: that no crisis would ever come upon the Athenians such as would force the people to think again of Aristides.
In the third year, as Xerxes advanced through Thessaly and Boeotia toward Attica, they annulled the law and voted a return for those in exile, fearing especially that Aristides might go over to the enemy and corrupt and win over many of the citizens to the side of the barbarian—wrongly gauging the man, who even before this decree had continued to urge and spur the Greeks on toward freedom, and after this decree, with Themistocles serving as general with full powers, cooperated and gave counsel in everything, making his bitterest enemy most glorious for the sake of the common safety.
For when those around Eurybiades were deliberating on abandoning Salamis, the barbarian triremes, having put out by night and encircled the strait all around, held also the islands, no one having foreknown this encirclement; and Aristides arrived from Aegina, having ventured dangerously through the enemy ships, and coming by night to Themistocles' tent and calling him out alone, said, "We
must, Themistocles," he said, "if we are wise, at last set aside our empty and boyish rivalry, and begin a salutary and noble contest with each other for the saving of Greece—you commanding and generaling, I serving and advising—since even now I learn that you alone are laying hold of the best plans, urging that we fight the sea battle in the straits as quickly as possible.
And though your allies oppose you, the enemy seem to be cooperating with you: for the sea round about and behind is already filled with enemy ships, so that necessity has overtaken even those unwilling to be brave men and to fight—for no road of flight has been left."
To this Themistocles said: "I would not have wished, Aristides, that you should get the better of me in this matter, but I will try, contending for a noble beginning, to surpass you in deeds." At the same time he told him of the deception he himself had contrived against the barbarian, and urged him to persuade Eurybiades and teach him that it was impossible to be saved without fighting a sea battle—for Eurybiades had more trust in him.
Hence, when in the assembly of generals Cleocritus the Corinthian said to Themistocles that Aristides too did not approve his plan, since he was present and yet kept silent, Aristides answered that he would not have kept silent had Themistocles not been saying what was best; but as it was, he was keeping quiet not out of goodwill toward the man, but because he approved his opinion.
So the admirals of the Greeks were doing this. But Aristides, seeing that Psyttaleia, an island not large lying in the strait before Salamis, was full of enemy men, put aboard light boats the most eager and warlike of the citizens and brought them against Psyttaleia, and joining battle with the barbarians killed them all, sparing only such notable men as were captured alive. Three of these captives were sons of the king's sister Sandauce, and Aristides sent them at once to Themistocles; and it is said, according to a certain oracle,
at the bidding of the seer Euphrantides, that they were sacrificed to Dionysus Omestes. And Aristides, having ringed the little island with arms on every side, lay in wait for those who were carried toward it, so that none of his friends should be destroyed nor any of the enemy escape. For it seems that the greatest crush of the ships and the fiercest part of the battle took place around that spot; wherefore a trophy stands on Psyttaleia.
After the battle Themistocles, testing Aristides, said that what they had accomplished was a fine deed, but that a still greater one remained to be done—to take Asia within Europe, sailing to the Hellespont as quickly as possible and cutting the bridges. But Aristides, crying out, urged him to cast this idea aside and instead to consider and seek how they might drive the Mede out of Greece as quickly as possible,
lest, shut in without means of flight and with so great a force, he be driven by necessity to turn to defense. So Themistocles again sent Arnaces the eunuch, secretly, from among the captives, bidding him tell the king that he himself, wishing the king to be saved, had turned back the Greeks, who were eager to sail against the bridges.
After this Xerxes, become thoroughly frightened, hastened at once toward the Hellespont, while Mardonius stayed behind with the army's most seasoned troops, numbering some three hundred thousand, and was formidable, since he had strong confidence in his infantry, threatening the Greeks and writing such things as these:
"You have conquered with wooden vessels of the sea men of the land who do not know how to ply an oar; but now the plain of Thessaly is broad, and the Boeotian plain is fair for good horsemen and hoplites to contend in." And to the Athenians privately he sent letters and words from the king, promising to restore their city to them and to give them much money and to establish them as masters of the Greeks, if they would withdraw from the war.
The Lacedaemonians, learning of this and afraid, sent envoys to Athens, begging the Athenians to send their children and women to Sparta, and to receive provisions for their elders from them; for the people were in dire want, having lost both their land and their city.
Nevertheless, having heard the envoys, on a motion drawn up by Aristides, they gave a remarkable answer, saying that they held the enemy excused, if they thought everything could be bought with wealth and money, of which they know nothing better; but that they were angry with the Lacedaemonians, because they looked only at the poverty and want now present among the Athenians, and were forgetful of their virtue and ambition, urging them to contend for Greece on short rations.
Having drawn up this answer, Aristides brought the envoys before the assembly and bade them tell the Lacedaemonians that there is not so great a quantity of gold, either above the earth or beneath it, as the Athenians would accept in place of the freedom of the Greeks. And to those from Mardonius, pointing to the sun, he said, "As long as this pursues its course, the Athenians will make war on the Persians on behalf of their ravaged land and their profaned and burned temples."
He further moved that the priests should lay curses on anyone who should send a herald to the Medes or abandon the alliance of the Greeks. And when Mardonius invaded Attica a second time, they crossed over again to Salamis. Aristides, sent to Lacedaemon, reproached them for their slowness and negligence, in that they had again left Athens exposed to the barbarian, and demanded that they help what still remained of Greece.
Having heard this, the ephors for the day seemed to be playing and idling in their festival—for it was the Hyacinthia; but by night, having chosen out five thousand Spartiates, each of whom had seven helots around him, they sent them off without the Athenians knowing. And when Aristides came forward again with his complaint, they said with laughter that he was talking nonsense and dreaming, since already the army was on the march at Orestheum against the strangers (for they called the Persians strangers),
Aristides said that they were not joking at the right time, deceiving their friends instead of the enemy. This is what those around Idomeneus say. But in the decree of Aristides it is not himself, but Cimon and Xanthippus and Myronides who are recorded as the envoys.
Having been elected general with full powers for the battle, and taking up eight thousand Athenian hoplites, he came to Plataea. There Pausanias also, the leader of the whole Greek force, joined him with the Spartiates, and the multitude of the other Greeks streamed in besides.
Of the barbarians, the whole encampment, stretched out along the Asopus river, had no boundary because of its size, but around their baggage and their most valuable things they fenced off a square wall, each side of which was ten stadia in length. Now Tisamenus the Elean prophesied jointly for Pausanias and the Greeks, and foretold victory for them if they stood on the defensive and did not attack first:
When Aristides sent to Delphi, the god declared that the Athenians would prevail over their foes, provided they offered prayer to Zeus and Hera of Cithaeron, to Pan, and to the Sphragitic nymphs, and made offering to the heroes Polyidus, Actaeon, Hypsion, Damocrates, Pisander, Leucon, and Androcrates, and waged their fight for their own soil in the plain of Demeter of Eleusis and Kore.
This oracle, when reported, caused Aristides great perplexity. For the heroes named for sacrifice were the men who had founded Plataea, while the grotto of the Sphragitic nymphs lies upon one summit of Cithaeron, turned toward where the sun sets in summer; there too, it is said, an oracle had once existed, and a number of the local people would fall into possession there, whom they called "nymph-taken." But the plain of Eleusinian Demeter,
together with the assurance that the Athenians would win if the fight took place on ground belonging to them, drew the war back once more into Attica and moved its location. There, the Plataean general Arimnestus dreamed that he was asked by Zeus the Savior what the Greeks had decided to do, and that he answered, "Tomorrow, master, we will lead the army back to Eleusis, and there fight the barbarians according to the Pythian oracle."
Whereupon the god said that they were altogether mistaken: for the places meant by the Pythian oracle were right there around the territory of Plataea, and if they sought they would find them. These things having appeared clearly to Arimnestus, he awoke at once and sent for the most experienced and eldest of the citizens, and conferring and puzzling it out with them, he found that near Hysiae, under Cithaeron, there stood a very ancient temple called that of Demeter of Eleusis and Kore.
At once, therefore, he brought Aristides with him and guided him to the spot, which was admirably suited for drawing up an infantry phalanx against an enemy superior in cavalry, since the foothills of Cithaeron made the ground where the plain ends and borders on the sanctuary impassable to horse. Nearby too stood the shrine of Androcrates, enclosed by a grove of thick and shady trees.
So that the oracle might lack nothing needed for the hope of victory, the Plataeans decided, on Arimnestus's proposal, to abolish the boundaries of Plataean territory on the side toward Attica, and to hand the land over to the Athenians, so that, for the sake of Greece, they might wage the contest upon ground that was their own, just as the oracle required.
This generosity of the Plataeans came to be so celebrated that even Alexander, many years later, when he already ruled Asia and was walling Plataea, had a herald announce at the Olympic festival that he, the king, was giving this back to the Plataeans in gratitude for their manly virtue and greatness of spirit, since they had given up their land to the Greeks in the Persian War and had shown themselves most eager of all.
The Tegeans quarreled with the Athenians about the order of battle, claiming that custom always gave the Lacedaemonians the right wing while the left fell to them, and extolling at length the deeds of their ancestors. When the Athenians grew angry, Aristides came forward and said: "The present occasion does not allow us to dispute with the Tegeans about noble birth and manly courage; but to you, Spartans, and to the rest of the Greeks we say this: that place neither takes away nor confers valor. Whatever position you assign us, we will try to adorn it and to guard it well, so as not to disgrace the contests we have fought before.
For it is not to squabble with our allies that we have come, but rather to make war on our enemies; not to sing the praises of our fathers, but to show Greece that we ourselves are good men. This contest will show what every city, commander, and private man is worth to the Greeks." Hearing this, the delegates and commanders approved the Athenians and granted them the other wing.
As Greece was in suspense and the Athenians' affairs stood especially precariously, men of illustrious lineage who had once possessed great riches, now reduced to poverty by the war, and who watched their whole standing and reputation in the city fade away along with their fortunes, while others gained honor and office, met in secret at a house in Plataea and swore an oath together to bring down the democracy, and, should that attempt fail, to wreck the effort and hand it over to the barbarians.
While this plot was under way within the camp, with many men already won over to it, Aristides came to learn of it and, alarmed at the danger of the moment, decided neither to let the matter go unattended nor to expose it fully, not knowing to what extent the exposure might spread if he pursued the strict bound of justice rather than what was expedient.
So out of many he arrested only eight; and of these, the two who bore the heaviest guilt and against whom the charge had first been framed — Agesias of Acharnae and Aeschines of Lamptrae — fled the camp, while he released the rest, giving them courage and the chance to change their minds if they still thought themselves undetected, suggesting that they had the war as a great tribunal in which to clear themselves of the charges by counseling rightly and justly for their country.
After this, Mardonius, who seemed to have the greatest advantage, made trial of the Greeks, sending his whole cavalry against them as they sat encamped at the foot of Cithaeron in strong, rocky ground — all except the Megarians. These, three thousand in number, were encamped rather in the level ground. For this reason they suffered badly from the cavalry, which poured against them and made attacks from every side.
They therefore sent a messenger in haste to Pausanias asking for help, saying that they could not by themselves withstand the multitude of the barbarians. Pausanias, hearing this, and already seeing the camp of the Megarians hidden under a mass of javelins and arrows and the men pressed into a small space, was himself at a loss how to defend against horsemen with the heavy-armed phalanx of the Spartans,
and so he proposed to the other generals and captains of the Greeks around him a contest of valor and ambition, to see if any would willingly undertake to go forward and help the Megarians. While the others hesitated, Aristides undertook the task on behalf of the Athenians, and sent out Olympiodorus, the most eager of the captains, with the three hundred picked men under his command and archers mixed in among them.
These men quickly got themselves ready and advanced at a run, and Masistius, the cavalry commander of the barbarians, a man of wondrous strength and outstanding in size and beauty of body, when he saw them, turned his horse to face them and rode against them. As they held their ground and closed with him, there was a fierce struggle, since in this the whole issue seemed to be tested.
But when his horse was shot and threw Masistius, and he, falling under the weight of his armor, was slow to rise and hard for the Athenians, pressing and striking upon him, to deal with — for he was fenced not only in chest and head but even in his limbs with gold and bronze and iron — one man, striking where the helmet left his eye exposed, killed him with the butt-spike of a javelin, and the rest of the Persians, abandoning the corpse, fled.
The greatness of this success was recognized by the Greeks not from the number of the dead, for few had fallen, but from the mourning of the barbarians. For they cut their hair, both themselves and their horses and mules, in grief for Masistius, and filled the plain with wailing and lamentation, since they had lost a man who was, after Mardonius himself, by far the first in valor and power.
After the cavalry battle both sides held off from fighting for a long time; for as they stood on the defensive, the seers, reading the sacrifices, foretold victory alike to Persians and Greeks if they held their ground, but defeat if they attacked. Then Mardonius, since he had provisions for only a few more days while the Greeks kept growing more numerous as reinforcements streamed in, chafing at the delay, resolved to delay no further and instead to cross the Asopus at first light and catch the Greeks off guard; and he gave the order to his commanders in the evening.
About the middle of the night a man on horseback quietly approached the camp of the Greeks; meeting the sentries, he asked that Aristides the Athenian come to him. When Aristides quickly complied, the man said: "I am Alexander of Macedon, and out of goodwill toward you I have come, undertaking the gravest of risks, so that the suddenness of the attack may not throw you into confusion and make you fight the worse. For Mardonius will give you battle tomorrow,
not out of any good hope or confidence, but from the difficulty of his present situation, since the seers too are keeping him from battle by unfavorable sacrifices and oracular sayings, and the army is gripped by great despondency and dismay. But necessity compels him to dare and try his fortune, rather than remain motionless and suffer want pushed to its final extreme."
Having said this, Alexander begged Aristides to keep the matter to himself and remember it, and not report it to anyone else. Aristides said it was not right to conceal this from Pausanias, since to him the supreme command belonged; but he agreed it should remain unspoken to the others before the battle, though if Greece won, no one would fail to learn of Alexander's zeal and valor.
When this had been said, the Macedonian king turned and rode off once more, and Aristides went to Pausanias' tent and reported what had passed between them; and they sent for the other commanders and gave orders to keep the army in order, since there would be a battle.
Meanwhile, as Herodotus records, Pausanias proposed to Aristides that the Athenians shift to the right wing and be posted opposite the Persians, arguing that they would fight better there, being already experienced with that kind of battle and emboldened by their previous victory, while he himself would take the left wing, where the medizing Greeks were expected to be posted.
Now the other Athenian generals thought Pausanias unreasonable and overbearing, if, while leaving the rest of the line in place, he moved only them up and down like helots, throwing them forward against the most warlike enemy. But Aristides said they were altogether mistaken, if — whereas lately they had vied eagerly with the Tegeans for the honor of holding the left wing, and prided themselves on winning it — now,
when the Lacedaemonians were voluntarily yielding the right wing to them and in a sense handing over the command, they did not welcome the glory nor consider it gain not to fight against their own kin and countrymen but against barbarians, enemies by nature. Because of this the Athenians very readily exchanged places with the Spartans in the
line; and much talk passed among them as they encouraged one another, saying that the enemy who now advanced had neither better weapons nor better spirits than those at Marathon, but the same bows, the same embroidered garments and gold upon soft bodies and unmanly souls; while their own arms and bodies were much the same, but their confidence was the greater for their victories, and the contest was not merely for land and city, as it had been then, but for the trophies of Marathon and Salamis, so that these might be seen to belong not to Miltiades and fortune alone, but to the Athenians.
So these men were making haste in the exchange of positions; but the Thebans, perceiving it through deserters, told Mardonius. He at once, whether out of fear of the Athenians or eagerness to engage the Lacedaemonians, led the Persians back across to the right wing, and ordered the Greeks who were with him to take position opposite the Athenians.
When this rearrangement became evident, Pausanias in turn withdrew and took his place again on the right, and Mardonius, as he had been at first, resumed the left wing opposite the Lacedaemonians, and the day passed without action. The Greeks in council decided to move their camp farther off and occupy a place with good water, since the nearby springs had been fouled and ruined by the barbarians' cavalry superiority.
As night came on and the generals were leading the men to the appointed camping ground, the mass of them were not very eager to follow and stay together, but as soon as they rose from their first entrenchments most of them streamed toward the city of the Plataeans, and there was confusion as they scattered and pitched camp in disorder. It happened that the Lacedaemonians alone were left behind against their will, for Amompharetus,
a hot-tempered man and a lover of danger, who had long been chafing for battle and resented the many delays and postponements, now called the withdrawal outright flight and desertion, and said he would not leave his post, but would remain there with his own company of men and stand his ground against Mardonius.
Pausanias approached and informed him that the Greeks had already voted on and settled this plan, whereupon Amompharetus lifted up a huge boulder in both his hands and, hurling it down at Pausanias's feet, declared that this was his own ballot regarding the battle, and told the others to hang their cowardly votes and decrees. Pausanias, uncertain what course to take given the present circumstances, sent word to the Athenians, who were already pulling back, asking them to hold their position and advance alongside him, while he himself guided the remainder of the force toward Plataea, hoping thereby to get Amompharetus up and moving.
Meanwhile day overtook them, and Mardonius (for the Greeks had not escaped notice in abandoning their camp) bore down upon the Lacedaemonians with his force drawn up in order, amid great shouting and clamor of the barbarians, as though there would be no battle at all, but as though they would simply seize and carry off the Greeks as they fled. This came very close to actually happening.
For when Pausanias saw what was happening, he halted the march and ordered each man to take up his position for battle, but whether owing to his anger at Amompharetus or because the enemy's swiftness had thrown him into disorder, he neglected to pass the watchword along to the Greeks. Hence they came to help neither at once nor in a body, but a few at a time and scattered, the battle already being at close quarters.
When his sacrifices, as he offered them, did not turn out favorable, he ordered the Lacedaemonians to set their shields down before their feet and sit quietly, attending to him, defending themselves against none of the enemy, while he himself sacrificed again. And the enemy's cavalry kept charging in upon them, and now missiles were reaching them, and one of the Spartiates had already been struck—
of the Spartiates. And meanwhile Callicrates too, who they say was the handsomest of the Greeks in appearance and the tallest in body in that whole army, was struck by an arrow and, as he was dying, said he did not lament his death — for he had come from home to die on behalf of Greece — but that he was dying without having used his hand in the fight. So the suffering was terrible, but the men's self-restraint was admirable. For they did not defend themselves against the enemy pressing upon them, but, waiting for the moment appointed by the god and by their general, they endured being struck and falling in their ranks.
Some say that while Pausanias was sacrificing and praying a little way outside the battle line, some Lydians suddenly fell upon him and snatched up and scattered the things prepared for the sacrifice, and that Pausanias and those about him, having no weapons, struck them with rods and whips; and that this is why, to this day, in imitation of that raid, the blows given at the altar in Sparta to the young men, and the subsequent procession of the Lydians, are performed.
Pausanias, then, being distressed at the situation, as the seer kept throwing down one victim after another, turned his gaze, filled with tears, toward the Heraeum, and raising his hands prayed to Cithaeronian Hera and the other gods who hold the land of Plataea, that if it were not fated for the Greeks to conquer, they might at least do something and suffer something, and show by their deed to the enemy that they had marched against men who were brave and who had learned how to fight.
As Pausanias was calling upon the gods in this way, together with his prayers the sacrificial signs appeared favorable, and the seer announced victory. And when the order was given to all to form up against the enemy, the phalanx suddenly took on the appearance of a single spirited creature turning to face danger and bristling, and the barbarians at that moment came to the realization that the contest would be against men who would fight to the death.
For this reason they set up many of their wicker shields in front and shot arrows at the Lacedaemonians. But the latter, keeping their shield-wall close together, advanced, and falling upon them thrust the wicker shields aside, and striking the faces and chests of the Persians with their spears, brought down many of them, who did not fall inactive or without spirit. For indeed, seizing the spear-shafts with their bare hands, they snapped most of them in two, and turned to drawing their swords not sluggishly, but using their cleavers and short swords, wrenching aside the shields and grappling, they held out for a long time.
The Athenians for their part remained quiet for a while, waiting for the Lacedaemonians, but when much shouting from the combatants came to them, and, as the story goes, a courier came from Pausanias to report what was going on, they hurried out at once to lend aid. And as they advanced through the plain toward the shouting, those of the Greeks who sided with the Medes bore down upon them,
and Aristides, as soon as he saw this, went far out in front and cried out, calling the gods of the Greeks to witness, urging them to abstain from battle and not to stand in their way nor hinder them from going to the aid of those who were risking their lives on behalf of Greece. But when he saw that they paid no attention to him and were drawn up for battle, he turned away from that errand of aid and engaged these men, who numbered about fifty thousand.
But most of these men immediately yielded ground and pulled back, since the barbarians had already withdrawn as well, but the fighting, it is said, took place chiefly against the Thebans, since the foremost and most powerful men among them at that time sided with the Medes most zealously, and led the mass of the people not according to its own judgment, but under an oligarchic government.
So while the struggle was thus divided in two parts, the Lacedaemonians were first to drive back the Persians; and Mardonius was killed by a Spartiate man named Arimnestus, who struck him on the head with a stone, just as the oracle at Amphiaraus had foretold to him. For Mardonius had sent a Lydian man there, and another man, a Carian, to the oracle of Trophonius; and the prophet addressed this latter man in the Carian tongue,
while the Lydian, having lain down to sleep in the shrine of Amphiaraus, dreamed that a servant of the god stood by him and bade him depart, and when he refused, hurled a large rock against his skull, so that it appeared the man had perished from that blow: and this is said to have actually happened. And the fugitives they shut up within the wooden walls. A little later the Athenians routed the Thebans, killing three hundred of their most eminent and foremost men in the very battle itself.
Now when the rout had taken place, a messenger came to them that the barbarian force was being besieged, shut up within its walls. So they let the Greeks there save themselves as they could, and went to help at the walls: and, presenting themselves before the Lacedaemonians, who had no experience or skill whatsoever in besieging fortifications, they captured the camp while inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.
For it is said that of the three hundred thousand, forty thousand fled with Artabazus, while among those who fought for the cause of Greece, the total number of dead came to thirteen hundred and sixty. Of these the Athenians numbered fifty-two, all from the tribe of Aiantis, as Cleidemus says,
which fought best of all; wherefore the men of the Aiantis tribe offer to the Sphragitid nymphs the sacrifice enjoined by the Pythia on behalf of the victory, receiving the expense from the public treasury. The Lacedaemonians lost more than ninety-one, and the Tegeans sixteen. It is therefore astonishing what Herodotus says, that only these came to close quarters with the enemy, and none of the other Greeks. For both the number of the fallen and the monuments bear witness
that the achievement was a common one: and they would not have inscribed the altar in this way, if only three cities had fought, while the rest sat quietly by: "When the Greeks by the strength of victory, by the deed of Ares, had driven out the Persians, they set up, for free Greece, this common altar of Zeus the Liberator."
This battle they fought on the fourth day of the rising month of Boedromion according to the Athenian calendar, though by Boeotian reckoning it fell on the fourth day of the waning Panemus, and on that same day the Hellenic council continues even now to convene at Plataea, with the Plataeans offering sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator for the victory. One should not be surprised at the discrepancy of the days, since even now, though the science of astronomy has been made exact, different people still reckon the beginning and end of the month differently.
After this, when the Athenians would not yield the prize of valor to the Spartiates nor allow them to set up the trophy, the affairs of the Greeks came very close to being ruined outright at once, as they took up arms against one another, had not Aristides, by much persuading and instructing his fellow generals, especially Leocrates and Myronides, prevailed and persuaded them to refer the judgment to the Greeks.
Thereupon, as the Greeks deliberated, Theogeiton the Megarian said that the prize of valor ought to be given to some other city, if they did not wish to stir up civil war; and after him Cleocritus the Corinthian rose, giving the impression that he would ask the prize for the Corinthians (for Corinth held the highest repute after Sparta and Athens), but he delivered a speech that pleased everyone and was admirable, concerning the Plataeans, and advised them to remove the rivalry by giving the prize of valor to those men, at whose being honored neither side would be aggrieved.
When this had been said, Aristides was the first to give his assent for the Athenian side, and Pausanias then did likewise for the Lacedaemonians. Their differences thus settled, they allotted the Plataeans eighty talents, out of which they rebuilt the sanctuary of Athena, set up the statue, and adorned the shrine with paintings that remain fresh to this day, and they also set up trophies, the Lacedaemonians one on their own, and the Athenians a separate one.
When they inquired concerning sacrifice, the Pythian god answered that they should set up an altar of Zeus the Liberator, but should hold off sacrificing until every fire in the land, defiled by the barbarians, had been put out and a fresh, pure flame kindled from the shared hearth at Delphi. So the leaders of the Greeks went about at once and compelled all who kept fires to extinguish them, and from Plataea Euchidas, undertaking to bring the fire from the god as quickly as possible, came to Delphi.
Having purified his body and sprinkled himself, he wreathed his head with laurel; then, taking up the flame from the altar, he set off running back to Plataea, and returned before sunset, having covered a thousand stadia in the same day. Having greeted his fellow citizens and delivered the fire, he immediately collapsed and shortly after breathed his last. The Plataeans, admiring him, buried him in the sanctuary of Artemis Eucleia, inscribing this tetrameter verse upon his tomb: "Euchidas ran to Pytho and came back here on the same day."
As for Eucleia, most people identify and regard her as Artemis, though some claim instead that she was born of Heracles and Myrto, who was Menoetius's daughter and Patroclus's sister, and that, dying unmarried, she is honored among the Boeotians and the Locrians. For an altar and image of her stand in every marketplace, and both brides and bridegrooms offer preliminary sacrifice to her.
After this, a common assembly of the Greeks having been held, Aristides drew up a decree that delegates and sacred envoys should assemble at Plataea every year from all of Greece, and that a quinquennial contest of the Eleutheria (Games of Freedom) should be held. And that there should be a common Greek levy of ten thousand shields, one thousand horse, and one hundred ships for the war against the barbarians, and that the Plataeans should be set apart, inviolable and sacred to the god, sacrificing on behalf of Greece.
When these things had been ratified, the Plataeans undertook to offer funeral rites each year to those of the Greeks who had fallen and were interred in that ground. Even now, they carry out the custom thus: on the month Maimacterion's sixteenth day, which among the Boeotians is called Alalcomenius, they send forth a procession, led at daybreak by a trumpeter sounding the call to battle,
followed by wagons full of myrtle and wreaths, and a black bull, and free young men carrying jars of wine and milk in amphorae and vessels of oil and perfume; for no slave is permitted to take part in that service, because the men died on behalf of freedom:
and at the end of all comes the archon of the Plataeans, who at other times is not permitted to touch iron nor to put on any garment other than white, but who then, wearing a scarlet tunic and taking up a water-jar from the record-office, girded with a sword, leads the way to the graves through the middle of the city.
Then, taking water from the spring, he himself washes the stelae and anoints them with myrrh, and having slaughtered the bull at the pyre and prayed to Zeus and Hermes of the earth, he calls upon the good men who died on behalf of Greece to come to the feast and the blood-libation. Then, having mixed a bowl of wine and poured it out, he says: "This cup is raised to those who gave their lives that Greece might live free." These rites the Plataeans still preserve even to this day.
When Aristides saw that the Athenians, having withdrawn into the city, were seeking to recover their democracy, thinking both that the people deserved consideration for their manly valor, and further that compulsion could no longer readily be used against men now armed and strong, flushed with the pride of their victories, he drafted a decree that the constitution should be shared in common and that the archons should be chosen from all the Athenians.
When Themistocles told the people that he had some plan and secret proposal, useful and salutary for the city, they ordered that Aristides alone should hear it and judge it. When Themistocles explained to Aristides that he intended to burn the dockyard of the Greeks, since in this way the Athenians would become greatest and masters of all, Aristides came before the people and said that of the deed which Themistocles intended to do, there was none more profitable, but also none more unjust. Hearing this, the Athenians ordered Themistocles to stop. So devoted to justice was the people, and so trusted and steadfast in the people's eyes was the man.
Dispatched as general in company with Cimon to carry on the war, he observed that Pausanias and the other Spartan commanders treated the allies with harshness and oppression; he himself, by his own gentle and considerate manner toward them, and by making Cimon appear approachable and ready to cooperate in the campaigns, gradually and imperceptibly took the leadership away from the Lacedaemonians — not through weapons, ships, or cavalry, but through equitable conduct and political skill.
For the Athenians, already dear to the Greeks because of the justice of Aristides and the fairness of Cimon, were made still more desired because of the greed and heaviness of Pausanias. For he always dealt with the commanders of the allies in anger and roughly, and punished the common soldiers with blows, or by fastening an iron anchor upon them forced them to stand the whole day through.
It was not possible to obtain bedding or fodder, nor to approach a spring to draw water, before the Spartans, but attendants with whips drove off those who approached. When Aristides once wished to complain about this and instruct him, Pausanias, drawing his face into a scowl, said he had no leisure, and would not even listen.
After this the naval commanders and generals of the Greeks, especially the Chians, Samians, and Lesbians, kept urging Aristides to take up the leadership and to bring over to himself the allies who for a long time had wanted to break free from Spartan control and shift their loyalty toward the Athenians. He answered that in their words he saw both necessity and justice, but that trust required a deed — one which, once done, would not allow the majority to change their minds again —
and so the men around Uliades of Samos and Antagoras of Chios, having conspired together, ran their trireme in near Byzantium against that of Pausanias, catching it sailing ahead alone, boxed in between them. When Pausanias, seeing this, sprang up and angrily threatened that in a little while he would show these men that they had rammed not his ship, but their own native cities, they told him to go away and be content with the fortune that had fought beside him at Plataea; for it was still out of shame before that victory that the Greeks were not exacting from him the punishment he deserved. In the end they broke away and went over to the Athenians.
Then indeed the spirit of Sparta was shown to be admirable. For when they saw that the vast scope of their power was corrupting their commanders, they voluntarily surrendered the leadership and no longer dispatched generals to conduct the war, preferring instead citizens who behaved sensibly and held to their traditions over dominion across all of Greece.
The Greeks paid a certain contribution toward the war even while the Lacedaemonians were leading them, but wishing to be assessed city by city according to a fair measure, they asked the Athenians for Aristides, and charged him, after examining each state's territory and revenues, to determine what was fitting for each according to its worth and power.
He, having become master of so great an authority, and with Greece in a manner placing all her affairs in his hands alone, went out poor and came back poorer still, having made the assessment of the tribute not only cleanly and justly, but agreeably to all and fittingly. For just as the men of old spoke of the life under Cronus, so the allies of the Athenians, naming the tribute under Aristides a kind of good fortune for Greece, sang its praises — especially after not much time had passed and it was doubled, and then again tripled.
For the amount Aristides set came to a reckoning of four hundred and sixty talents; to this Pericles added nearly a third part more, for Thucydides says that six hundred talents came in to the Athenians from the allies at the beginning of the war; and after the death of Pericles, the popular leaders, gradually raising it, brought the total to a full thirteen hundred talents — this increase owing less to the conflict's duration and vicissitudes making it burdensome and costly, as because they led the people on into distributions, theater-money, and the construction of statues and temples.
Now Aristides, having gained a great and admirable reputation from his arrangement of the tributes, was said to be mocked by Themistocles, who claimed that the praise belonged not to a man but to a moneybag guarding gold — thus paying back in a different coin Aristides' own frankness of speech. For when Themistocles once said to him that he considered the greatest virtue of a general to be the knowing and foreseeing beforehand the plans of the enemy, Aristides said, "That indeed is necessary, Themistocles, but truly noble and generalship worthy of the name is self-control with respect to one's hands."
Aristides administered the oath to the Greeks and swore on behalf of the Athenians, casting lumps of iron into the sea to accompany the curses; but later, when affairs were pressing him, as it seems, to hold power more firmly, he urged the Athenians to turn the perjury upon himself and to manage affairs as was advantageous.
In general Theophrastus says that this man, while being supremely just in his private dealings and toward his fellow citizens, did many things in public affairs with a view to the interest of his country, which required, he thought, a good deal of injustice. For indeed he says that when they were deliberating about bringing the treasury from Delos to Athens contrary to the agreements, and the Samians proposed it, Aristides said that this was not just, but —
— that it was expedient. And in the end, having established the city in a position to rule over so many men, he himself remained in poverty, and clung no less to the reputation gained from being poor than to that gained from his trophies. This is clear from the following. Callias the torch-bearer was related to him by family. His enemies, prosecuting him on a capital charge, when they had made only a moderate case concerning the actual charges written against him, added an extraneous argument of this sort to the jurors: "Aristides,"
they said, "you know — the son of Lysimachus, admired among the Greeks — how do you suppose things stand at his home, when you see him walking around town wrapped in so worn and shabby a cloak? Surely a man so plainly cold to the eye must also go hungry at home, short of other necessities as well? Yet this man, though he is his cousin, Callias, the richest of the Athenians, allows him to go in want along with his children and wife, though he has often made use of the man and often profited from his influence among you."
Callias, seeing that the jurors were especially stirred up by this and hostile toward him, called upon Aristides, asking him to testify before the jurors that though he had often given much and begged him to accept it, Aristides had refused, replying that it was more fitting for him to take pride in his poverty than for Callias to take pride in his wealth; for in wealth one can see many men making use of it both well and badly, but it is not easy to find one who bears poverty nobly; and it is only those who are poor against their will who ought to be ashamed of poverty.
When Aristides had testified this in favor of Callias, there was no one among those who heard it who did not go away wishing rather to be poor as Aristides was than rich as Callias was. This is what Aeschines the Socratic has recorded. Plato declares that among those regarded as great and celebrated at Athens, he alone deserved to be named; for Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles crowded the city with colonnades, wealth, and much frivolous excess, whereas Aristides directed his statesmanship toward virtue itself.
Great too are the signs of his fairness toward Themistocles. Though he had made use of him as an enemy throughout the whole of his political career, and had been ostracized because of him, when the man gave the same handle against himself by falling under accusation before the city, Aristides bore no grudge; but while Alcmaeon and Cimon and many others were driving him out and accusing him, Aristides alone neither did nor said anything base, nor did he take pleasure in an enemy's misfortune, just as he had not envied him before in his prosperity.
Regarding how Aristides met his end, some report he passed away in Pontus, having sailed there on a public mission; others hold that old age took him at Athens, where he was esteemed and honored by his countrymen. Craterus the Macedonian has said something of this sort concerning the man's death. For he says that after the exile of Themistocles, the people, as though grown insolent, produced a crowd of sycophants, who, pursuing the best and most powerful men, exposed them to the envy of the multitude, who were puffed up by good fortune and power.
Among these, he says, Aristides too was convicted of bribery, Diophantus of Amphitrope being the accuser, on the ground that when he was assessing the tributes he had taken money from the Ionians; and since he could not raise the money for the fine — fifty minas in all — he sailed off and met his death somewhere near Ionia. But of these things Craterus has furnished no written proof, neither a judgment nor a decree, although he is generally accustomed to write down such things carefully and to cite those who report them.
But all the others, so to speak, who record the wrongs the people committed against their generals — Themistocles driven into exile, Miltiades thrown into prison, Pericles struck with a fine, and Paches meeting his death in the courtroom, who killed himself upon the platform as he was being convicted, and many other such things — gather and repeat these constantly, but of Aristides they mention only the ostracism, and nowhere do they record any conviction of this sort.
And indeed there is a tomb of his shown at Phalerum, which they say the city built for him, since he left behind not even enough for a burial. And they relate that his daughters were given in marriage from the prytaneum at public expense, the city standing surety for the marriage and voting a dowry of three thousand drachmas to each; and to his son Lysimachus the people gave a hundred minas of silver and as many plethra of planted land, and assigned besides four drachmas a day,
on a motion drafted by Alcibiades. And when Lysimachus in turn left behind a daughter, Polycrite, the people, according to Callisthenes, granted her the same support given to victors at Olympia. Demetrius of Phalerum, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the musician, and Aristotle (assuming the treatise On Noble Birth truly belongs among Aristotle's authentic writings) report that Myrto, a granddaughter of Aristides, lived with Socrates the philosopher, who had another wife, but took her in as a widow through poverty, in want of the necessities of life.
Against these writers Panaetius has adequately argued in his work on Socrates. Yet Demetrius of Phalerum, in the work he titled Socrates, recalls a grandson of Aristides, a very poor man named Lysimachus, who used to make his living sitting by the so-called Iaccheion with a little tablet for interpreting dreams. And having drafted a decree on behalf of the man's mother and her sister, he persuaded the people to give them a maintenance of three obols each per day. Demetrius himself, indeed, says that when he was serving as lawgiver he fixed a drachma instead of three obols for each of the women.
And it is no wonder that the people took such thought for those in the city, when, hearing that a granddaughter of Aristogeiton was faring poorly in Lemnos, unable to find a husband because of her poverty, they brought her down to Athens, and having married her to a man of good family, gave the estate at Potamos as her dowry. Of this humanity and goodness the city, even down to our own day, brings forth many proofs, and is admired and rightly emulated for it.