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Neither Themistokles nor Miltiades had ever been so honoured. When Miltiades demanded the honour of an olive crown, Sophanes of Dekeleia rose up in the public assembly and said, "Miltiades, when you have fought and conquered the barbarians alone, you may ask to be honoured alone, but not before" a harsh speech, but one which perfectly expressed the feeling of the people.
Aristeides never conspicuously distinguished himself, as the credit of the victory at Marathon belongs to Miltiades, and that of Salamis to Themistokles, while Herodotus tells us that Pausanias obtained the most glorious success of all at Platæa, and even the second place is disputed with Aristeides by Sophanes, Ameinias, Kallimachus, and Kynægyrus, all of whom won great glory in those battles.
But Aristides was never principal in any action; for Miltiades carried the day at Marathon, at Salamis Themistocles, and at Plataea, Herodotus tells us, Pausanias got the glory of that noble victory: and men like Sophanes, and Aminias, Callimachus, and Cynaegyrus, behaved themselves so well in all those engagements, as to contest it with Aristides even for the second place.
For it would have been a great indignity, that Sophanes, Aeimnestus, and all the rest who showed their valor in that fight, should calmly suffer even the Cythnians and Melians to be inscribed on the trophies; and that Herodotus, attributing that fight only to three cities, should raze all the rest out of those and other sacred monuments and donaries.
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