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Determined from the very outset that he would become the leading man in the state, he eagerly entered into all the schemes for displacing those who where then at the head of affairs, especially attacking Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, whose policy he opposed on every occasion.
Will not the names of Solon, of Aristeides, of Kallikratidas, of Epameinondas, of Timoleon and many more, remind us that life could be to the Hellene something of deeper moral import than a brilliant game, or a garden of vivid and sweet sights and sounds where Beauty and Knowledge entered, but Goodness was forgotten and shut out?
While this was being done, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, who was the first to perceive it, came to the tent of Themistokles, although the latter was his enemy, and had driven him into exile.
Though this man was his enemy throughout, and was the cause of his banishment by ostracism, yet when Themistokles gave him an opportunity of revenging himself in a similar manner he never remembered the injuries which he had received at his hands, but while Kimon, and Alkmæon, and many others, were endeavouring to drive him into exile and bringing all kinds of accusations against him, Aristeides alone never did or said anything against him, and did not rejoice over the spectacle of his enemy's ruin, just as he never envied his previous prosperity.
He immediately took Aristeides with him and proceeded to the spot, which was excellently placed for the array of an infantry force in the presence of an overwhelming cavalry, because the spurs of Mount Kithæron, where they run down into the plain by the temple, render the ground impassable for cavalry. Close by is the chapel of the hero Androkrates, in the midst of a thick matted grove of trees.
If not, Aristeides spoke plainly, his people must perforce close alliance with Mardonius. Almost to the amazement of the Athenian chiefs, so accustomed were they to Dorian doltishness and immobility, after a ten days’ delay and excuses that “they must celebrate their festival the Hyacinthia,” the ephors called forth their whole levy.
Those only should be ashamed of poverty who are poor against their wills. When Aristeides bore witness to the truth of this, on behalf of Kallias, there was no one who heard him but left the court wishing rather to be poor like Aristeides than rich like Kallias. This story is preserved by Æschines, the companion of Sokrates.
But Aristeides disapproved of this measure, saying, "Hitherto we have fought against the Persian king, while he has been at his ease; but if we shut him up in Greece, and drive the chief of so large an army to despair, he will no longer sit quietly under a golden umbrella to look on at his battles, but will strain every nerve and superintend every operation in person, and so will easily retrieve his losses and form better plans for the future."
But Surena assembling the Senate of Seleukeia, laid before them certain licentious books of the Milesiaca of Aristeides, and, in this matter, at least, there was no invention on his part; for they were found among the baggage of Rustius, and they gave Surena the opportunity of greatly insulting and ridiculing the Romans, because they could not, even when going to war, abstain from such things and such books.
The song runs as follows: "Though ye may sing Pausanias or Xanthippus in your lays, Or Leotychides, 'tis Aristeides whom I praise, The best of men as yet produced by holy Athens' State, Since thus upon Themistokles has fall'n Latona's hate: That liar and that traitor base, who for a bribe unclean, Refused to reinstate a man who his own guest had been.
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