Alexander's birth-place. Aristides travelled through Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt to the boundaries of Ethiopia. He says that he travelled four times through Egypt. His various journeys, and his great sufferings from an illness of thirteen years' duration, are recorded by himself. He had visions in which he saw Esculapius, Serapis, and Isis, from whom he received instructions for his health. It was in these dreams or visions also that he was urged to the study of eloquence, in which he was so successful that in his own judgment he equalled Demosthenes and the other great masters of Grecian oratory; as a writer he considers himself equal to Plato.

In the year A. D. 175 he had recovered from his illness, and was present at the Isthmian games, where he pronounced his oration to Neptune (Poseidon). It was probably in this year that he pronounced his Panathenaic oration also. In A. D. 176 the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus were at Smyrna, and Aristides exhibited before them his oratorical skill; but it is not certain that the oration (Σμυρναϊκός πολιτικός) was delivered on this occasion.

Aristides did not aspire to the power of extempore speech, and he described himself to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius as one of those who did not vomit forth (words), but who laboured at accuracy and to please. This was said either on the occasion of Marcus visiting Smyrna or Athens, but it was more probably on the occasion of the visit to Athens, where the rhetorician Hadrian astonished everybody by his readiness at speaking on any given subject. It is added that Aristides also wished to exhibit his oratorical skill before the emperor, but was prevented by the jealousy of Herodes Atticus, who then held the sophistic throne or chair at Athens. Upon this Aristides presented to Herodes a Panathenaic speech which he professed to wish to deliver, and Herodes finding it very poor, thought he would only disgrace himself by it, and accordingly consented to his pronouncing it. But his cunning rival, instead of this poor affair, pronounced another Panathenaic, that which is now extant, and it was received with great applause. It appears that Aristides enjoyed the favour of Marcus Aurelius, for he states that he received a letter from Aurelius and his son Commodus, containing many gratifying expressions and “immunity" (άTEλeía) for life in consideration of his eloquence. This was probably a special grant of the privilege given to various professional persons, which is particularly described in the life of ANTONINUS PIUS. Among other marks of distinction he was appointed eirenarch or guardian of the peace for a district (Tooμa) of Mysia, by Severus, the governor of Asia, by which it is supposed that the native place of Aristides is meant. The

When

people of Smyrna also gave him the citizenship of their town and the priesthood of Æsculapius, from which circumstance Aristides is sometimes called a Smyrnæan. Smyrna was visited by an earthquake, A. D. 178, Aristides prevailed upon the Emperor Aurelius to restore the city; and to mark their gratitude for this service the people of Smyrna erected his statue in bronze near the temple of Esculapius. We have his own testimony to the crowded audiences which his rhetorical displays collected around him: the applause was unbounded, and his audience was packed so close that nothing but heads could be seen.

This self-satisfied rhetorician survived M. Aurelius, who died A. D. 180. He died in the reign of Commodus, in the sixtieth year of his age, according to some authorities, and in the seventieth according to another authority. One of his orations (ПpoopwvnTIKOS Zμvpvαîos) was addressed to Commodus after his accession, but it was not delivered before him on his entry into Smyrna, as the Latin title prefixed to the oration by Canter states: the oration shows that it was addressed to Commodus from a distance. There is a sitting statue of Aristides at Rome, with an inscription bearing his name, but the genuineness of the statue has been questioned. Another figure, and in a standing posture, which was found in the ruins of Herculaneum, and is now in the Museo Borbonico, has been called the statue of Aristides the Just, but the affected attitude and the character of the figure sufficiently confute that opinion. It ought to be the statue of a rhetorician under the empire, and it may be the statue of Ælius Aristides. An inscription in honour of Aristides is preserved in the Museum at Verona.

Fifty-five of the orations or declamations of Aristides are extant. Some of them are addresses to certain deities, as Poseidon, Dionysos, and others. That to Dionysos was written in obedience to an order of Esculapius, which Aristides received in a dream. He also received orders from Æsculapius in a dream to praise the Asclepiada: he began the oration in his dream and finished it when he awoke. Other declamations are in praise of particular cities, as Smyrna, Cyzicus, and Rome ('Páμŋs éykáμιov), which is one of the best. The Panathenaicos is an imitation of the oration of Isocrates, which bears the same title. There is an oration in praise of the virtues of M. Aurelius, a subject which the orator could more easily spoil than exhaust. Other orations have for their topics subjects from the republican period of Greece, such as advice to the Athenians to conclude peace with the Lacedæmonians after the affair of Pylos, and to send aid to Nicias in Sicily. The orator has furnished us with the means of estimating his rhetorical essays by a comparison with those of the

best period of Grecian eloquence. His oration against Leptines is founded on the same matter as the Leptines of Demosthenes, one of the best specimens of the great Athenian's power. It is printed in the same volume with the edition of the Leptines of Demosthenes, by F. A. Wolf, and forms a striking contrast by its frigid commonplaces, its laboured antitheses, and its wearisome repetitions, with the vigorous and practical speech of the great master with whom Aristides had the impudence to enter into competition.

As a part of the literary history of the period, and as furnishing a few historical facts, the orations of Aristides have some value. In other respects the matter is trivial and worthless. Being merely literary essays, and, with some few exceptions, wanting the basis of reality, they are tedious beyond endurance. But even when Aristides handled a real topic, his feeble powers were insufficient to give to it a lasting interest. The great earthquake of Smyrna, which desolated that flourishing city, is mentioned in the third of his Sacred Orations, but it forms the sole topic of his letter addressed on the occasion to Aurelius and Commodus. After reminding the emperor that he knew what a place Smyrna once was, and that he is now informed of the calamity that had befallen it, the orator proceeds thus: "All this is now in the dust; that harbour is closed; the beauty of the agora is gone; the ornaments of the streets have disappeared; the gymnasia with the men and boys are destroyed; the temples, some are prostrate, some are sunk; and that city, which to look on was the fairest of cities, and noted through the world for its beauty, is now the most unseemly of sights, a heap of ruins and of dead; and the west wind blows over the desolation." On reading these words, says Philostratus, Marcus shed tears; but perhaps he was more moved by the reality of the calamity than the rhetorician's picture of it, and with his usual beneficence he restored Smyrna from its ruins.

The style of Aristides is generally perspicuous, seldom vigorous, always tiresome. Even in perspicuity he falls far below Demosthenes in his rival speech, for poverty of invention compelled him to labour at expression, and labour on words which mean little or nothing, can hardly be productive in the most skilful hands.

The "Six Sacred Discourses" ('Iepol Aóyo) are curious specimens of superstition. The disease which afflicted Aristides for thirteen years began A. D. 159; and these discourses are a history of his sufferings, his dreams, his supernatural intercourse with Esculapius, and of the remedies which the god prescribed, and of his application of them. In the second discourse he says that the god Esculapius from the first commanded him to keep a record of his dreams. The genuine

ness of these singular compositions has been doubted, but on no sufficient grounds. They are in all respects worthy of Aristides.

Aristides is also the author of two books on Rhetoric (Τεχνῶν Ρητορικῶν β Περὶ Πολιτικοῦ kal 'Apeλoûs Aóyou), or "On Political and Simple Speech." He takes Demosthenes as the pattern of the political, and Xenophon as the pattern of the simple.

The first edition of the orations of Aristides was by Euphrosinus Boninus, and printed by Phil. Giunta, Florence, 1517, fol. It contains only fifty-two orations, all that were then known. The Latin version of W. Canter was published at Basel, 1566, and with the Greek text by P. Stephens, 1604. S. Jebb's edition, in 2 vols. 4to., Oxford, 1722 and 1730, contains both the Greek text and the Latin version, the "Collectanea Historica of Masson," which traces the life of Aristides from his writings with painful minuteness, and other matters. The edition of W. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1829, 3 vols. 8vo., contains an improved text of the orations, and also the two books of rhetoric, with the Prolegomena attributed to Sopater of Apamea, the scholia collected by Reiske and other matters. The oration against Leptines was first published by J. Morelli, Venice, 1785, 8vo. The oration of Aristides against Demosthenes (Пepì 'ATEλelas) was discovered by A. Mai, and first published by him in the first volume of his " Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio," Rome, 1825, 4to., with the fragment of another oration of Aristides, which is a panegyric on water. Both of the orations, that against and that for Leptines, have been edited by Grauert, Bonn, 1827, 8vo., under the title "Elii Aristidis Declamationes Leptineæ." It should be observed that the name of Aristides is not attached to either of these orations in the MSS., but no critic has yet doubted that he has a right to both of them. The ninth volume of the edition of the "Rhetores Græci" of C. Walz contains the two books on rhetoric. Photius (Cod. 246.) has given copious extracts from Aristides, who was a writer to his taste. (Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græc. vi. 12, &c., has given a list of the extant works of Aristides and of those which are lost.) G. L.

ARISTIDES ('Apioteídns), an ATHENIAN, the son of Lysimachus, belonged to the tribe (puan) Antiochis and the demus Alopeke. It was a disputed point among the later Greeks whether he was rich or poor: Plutarch, in opposition to the arguments of Demetrius Phalereus, who contends that he was in good circumstances, adopts the more received opinion of Aristides being poor. He was, however, well connected, for the wealthy Callias, the Daiduchus or torchbearer in the Eleusinian rites, was his cousin, or at least a kinsman. It does not, however, appear that Aristides owed his rise to any

thing except his own merits. His successful political career, and his reputation for integrity among his countrymen, which has been perpetuated to the present day, are a signal instance of the power of character in a public man.

The date of the birth of Aristides is not known. He was a friend of Cleisthenes, who established the Athenian constitution after the ejection of the Pisistratidæ (B. c. 510), and he attached himself to the aristocratical party. His great opponent and rival was Themistocles, who belonged to the democratic party. Plutarch relates an incident, as if it belonged to the earlier part of his life, as evidence of the universal opinion of his contemporaries of his unbending integrity. When a play of Eschylus was exhibiting in the theatre, Aristides was present. A passage in the play, which Plutarch has quoted, describes in vigorous terms the sterling honesty of Amphiaraus, and as it was pronounced all eyes were turned on Aristides as the person to whom the description was applicable. This play, the "Persa" of Eschylus, was exhibited B. C. 472, when the reputation of Aristides had been long established.

Being appointed treasurer or inspector of the revenue he exposed the peculations of his predecessors in office and of others, particularly Themistocles. In passing his accounts he was convicted of peculation himself by the contrivance of Themistocles; but the better part of the citizens became ashamed of the affair, the penalty or fine was remitted, and Aristides was again chosen to the same office. The mode in which he gave the Athenians a practical rebuke during his second term of office for their former treatment of him, as told by Plutarch (c. 4.), seems rather difficult to understand.

On the invasion of Attica by the Persians, under Datis and Artaphernes, Aristides was one of the ten Athenian commanders, among whom Miltiades was the most distinguished. Plutarch says that he set the example of resigning his day of command to Miltiades, for each general in turn had the command for a day. Herodotus tells the story of the generals resigning their command to Miltiades in a different way. In the great battle of Marathon (B. c. 490), Themistocles and Aristides fought in the Athenian centre, side by side, in their respective tribes, and had to bear the brunt of the battle. Herodotus says that the Athenian centre was broken and put to flight, and that the victory was gained by the two wings. He does not mention the name of Aristides in his account of the battle. Aristides was entrusted with the care of the spoil, which was strewed over the battle-field, and he maintained his character for integrity under this tempting opportunity of enriching himself. In the year after the battle (B. c. 489) Aristides was elected archon eponymus or chief

VOL. III.

archon, a circumstance which seems to show that there was nothing in his behaviour at the late battle, if he was present there, which gave any dissatisfaction. By his conduct in his administration he acquired the appellation of the Just. But the jealousy of Themistocles and the universal dislike of mankind of that which is greatly exalted above themselves, brought on Aristides the punishment of exile, or ostracism. The pretext was fear that he would acquire too great power in a democratic state : the reason was envy and jealousy. Ostracism was so called because the citizens who voted on the question of banishing an obnoxious citizen wrote on a tile or some such material the name of the person whom they wished to ostracise, and deposited it in a place set apart for the purpose. Ostracism was not a punishment for any misconduct or even for reputed bad character: it was called by the specious name of an humbling and curtailing of pride and excessive power, but it was a humane mode of satisfying envy, which vented its ill-will in a sentence of ten years' exile instead of a capital punishment (Plutarch, c. 5.).

A characteristic story is told of the conduct of Aristides on this occasion. A fellow who could not write, but, according to the constitution of Athens, was qualified to give his vote on such matters as the banishment of an honest man, handed his tile to one of the standers-by, and asked him to write on it the name of Aristides. "Has Aristides done you any wrong?" said the stranger. "None," replied the fellow, "and I don't even know the man, but I am tired of hearing him always called the Just." Aristides took the tile and wrote on it his own name. The ostracism of Aristides took place B. c. 483.

When Xerxes was advancing against Athens with his mighty armament, the Athenians, according to Plutarch, recalled the exiles, and among them Aristides, fearing that he might side with the enemy, in which they showed how little they knew the character of the man. Both before his recall and after it, he exerted himself to rouse the Greeks to oppose the enemy, and he zealously co-operated with his rival Themistocles for the common safety. According to Herodotus (viii. 79.), he was still in exile at the time of the battle of Salamis; and this is consistent with the account given both by Herodotus and Plutarch of his passing over from Ægina by night, at great risk, to the Grecian fleet stationed near Salamis; and informing Themistocles that the Greeks were completely hemmed in by the Persian ships, and that the retreat to the Isthmus, which Eurybiades, the Spartan commander, and the Corinthians recommended, was impossible. During the sea-fight of Salamis (B. c. 480) which ensued, Aristides landed with some Athenians on the small island of Psyttaleia, which is in the narrow sea between Salamis

E E

and the Attic coast, and he put to the sword all the enemy who had occupied the island. After the victory it was Aristides, according to Plutarch, who opposed the proposal of Themistocles to sail to the Hellespont and to cut off the retreat of Xerxes by destroying the bridge of boats over the channel. Herodotus says that it was Eurybiades who opposed this scheme of Themistocles, and that he was supported by the other Peloponnesian commanders.

The whole tenor of the narrative of Herodotus, and much of that in Plutarch, is inconsistent with the fact of Aristides being recalled before the battle of Salamis; and we must accordingly assume that his recall took place immediately after. Demosthenes (Against Aristogeiton, 2.) observes that Aristides lived in Ægina till he was recalled. Now he was not recalled before the battle of Salamis, or at least before his night visit to Themistocles; and, according to Herodotus, he withdrew immediately after announcing to the generals that they were surrounded by the Persian fleet. His services at Psyttaleia were those of a volunteer, and, if the narrative of Herodotus is true, he could not have been formally recalled till after the battle. Plutarch, the only authority for the recall of Aristides before the battle, speaks of this fact in vague and general terms, and if his words are to be construed as evidence in favour of this opinion, it must be observed that he immediately after contradicts himself by the narrative of Aristides coming over from Ægina in the night, and by the words of the address to Themistocles, which he puts into his mouth. He represents him, indeed, as present at the conference of the generals held after his communication had been made, but still as invited to it by Themistocles: and his descent on Psyttaleia further appears in the narrative of Plutarch as the act of a volunteer, who was permitted to aid the Athenians, but had no direct share in the sea-fight. These remarks may not be inappropriate, inasmuch as the date of the recall of Aristides has been made in modern times somewhat of a controverted question. It will add little to this argument to cite Cornelius Nepos, who says that the battle of Salamis was fought before Aristides was recalled.

Mardonius, who had been left in command of the Persian land forces by Xerxes, attempted to bribe the Athenians to desert the cause of the Greeks. The Spartans fearing the result of the Persian proposal sent ambassadors to Athens to offer the Athenians a refuge for their wives and children, and food for the older folks in the present difficulties. No answer was made to the Spartans, but they were invited to a public meeting, where the Persian envoys were present, and there they were told that there was no sum large enough to bribe the Athenians to desert the common cause.

Το

the Persians this noble answer was given: "So long as this sun shall keep his accustomed course, the Athenians will wage war with the Persians for their ravaged country, and for their violated temples which have been burned to the ground." The narratives of Herodotus and Plutarch substantially agree here, but Plutarch attributes the answer to Aristides, and Herodotus mentions no name in particular. Aristides was perhaps one of the Athenians who were afterwards sent to Sparta to urge the reluctant Spartans to send them aid to oppose the force of Mardonius. At the battle of Platæa, B. c. 479, he was commander-in-chief of the Athenian force of eight thousand men. In the dispute between the people of Tegea and the Athenians, both of whom claimed to occupy the left wing of the allied army, he prudently yielded to the claims of the Tegeatæ, but the Spartans, by acclamation, declared that the Athenians merited the post. Herodotus, who gives the substance of the arguments of the Tegeatæ and Athenians, does not mention the name of Aristides: he merely speaks of him as in chief command of the Athenian contingent. After the victory at Platea, a dispute arose as to the aristeia or prize of courage between the Athenians and Spartans; but Aristides persuaded the other Athenian commanders finally to submit the matter to the general body of the Greeks, and the prize was given to the Plateans. Aristides also proposed and carried a measure for the establishment of the Eleutheria at Platæa, a festival in commemoration of the deliverance of Greece from the invader. This solemn celebration of one of those great events of which a nation may be justly proud, was still observed at Platæa in the time of Plutarch, six hundred years after the battle.

The victory at Platæa led to some con-stitutional changes at Athens, of which Aristides himself is mentioned as the mover. He proposed and carried a measure for giving equal civic rights to all, as Plutarch expresses it, and making the archons eligible from the whole body of Athenians without regard to the former qualifications of birth and property. Such a change could hardly be consistent with the political views of Aristides, and it is described as a measure of expediency in the actual circumstances of the state.

Aristides is mentioned by Thucydides as one of the ambassadors to Sparta with Themistocles and others, on the occasion of the rebuilding of the walls of Athens, which had been destroyed by the Persians. The Spartans wished to prevent the restoration of the walls, but were outwitted by the cunning of Themistocles; and it is no unfair inference from the tenor of the narrative of Thucydides, that Aristides had no objection to take a part in deceiving those hollow allies whose treachery or timidity had well nigh ruined the Grecian cause (B. c. 478).

In the prosecution of the war against the Persians, Aristides was sent out by the Athenians in command together with Cimon. The prudence of Aristides, by whose advice Cimon was guided, won the affections of the allied Greeks, who became disgusted at the haughtiness and oppressive conduct of Pausanias and the other Spartan commanders. Thus the Spartans, who had the direction of the operations against the Persians, lost the affections of their allies, many of whom shortly after prayed Aristides to assume the command on behalf of the Athenians, and went over to them (B. c. 477). During the supremacy of the Lacedæmonians, the allies had contributed sums of money towards the prosecution of the war: they now prayed to be taxed a reasonable sum according to their respective states, and they requested the Athenians to appoint Aristides to fix their several contingents. He discharged this delicate duty in a way that secured universal approbation, and the allies were well satisfied with a taxation of four hundred and sixty talents, which, under the administration of Pericles, was increased by nearly one third, and after the death of Pericles was raised to thirteen hundred talents, and also misapplied. The sacred island of Delos was fixed as the treasury of the confederate Greeks, being a central place, and one which, by its sanctity and independent position, was well suited to the purpose. Subsequently, when the Athenians were deliberating about removing the treasury to Athens, Aristides, it is said, observed that it was politic to do so, but not just. This is given by Theophrastus, quoted by Plutarch, as an instance that Aristides, though scrupulously upright in his private dealings and in all his administration, would still do things for the benefit of his country which were not just. Plutarch himself, however, has preserved an anecdote, which belongs indeed to an earlier period of the life of Aristides, of his preferring fair dealing towards other states to what he considered beneficial to his own; though it is rather difficult to see how Athens would have been a gainer by such a piece of treachery at that time. However the story is this. Themistocles had stated to the assembled Athenians that he had a scheme which was useful to the state, but it could not be made public. Aristides was appointed to communicate with Themistocles. The scheme was indeed a bold one, and as unprincipled a design as an unscrupulous man ever contemplated: it was to burn the naval station of the Greeks (Gytheium in Laconia, according to other versions of the story), and thus secure to Athens the supremacy in Greece. Aristides reported that there could not be a design more advantageous to the state, nor one more dishonourable. The assembly, it is said, rejected the scheme upon the advice of Aristides without further inquiry.

By putting Athens at the head of a Greek confederation, Aristides became the founder of that supremacy which Athens maintained for about seventy years. The Greeks of Asia Minor, of the islands, and of Thrace, thus became attached to Athens as the leading state, and the influence of the Spartans was again limited to the Peloponnesus. By the terms of the confederation Athens had no power to interfere with the internal affairs of the various states, nor had she directly any

greater authority than the rest. Her influence, however, derived from her superior power and her acknowledged services in the Persian wars was great, and it was maintained and strengthened by the necessity for continuing their operations against the Persians. A foundation was thus laid for Athens acquiring a political superiority over the islands and the Asiatic Greeks, which afterwards became a grievous tyranny. The prudence which Aristides displayed in peaceably transferring to his own state the supremacy which Sparta had hitherto enjoyed among the confederate Greeks, and the equity and wisdom of his general administration, to which every fragment of antiquity bears testimony, entitle him to be viewed as the most distinguished statesman that ever appeared among the Greeks; and if we look for his parallel in other times and countries, it will not be easy to find a man who for courage and generalship in the field, sound judgment and inflexible integrity in the conduct of public affairs in times of the greatest difficulty, and unspotted purity of private life, can be compared with Aristides the Just. To have been exempt from the vice of peculation was itself a virtue at Athens: but to have been virtuous when compared with upright statesmen in ages more free from corruption is exalted praise. If Aristides has his parallel in modern times, it is George Washington.

The time and circumstances of the death of Aristides are uncertain. He died, according to one account, while abroad on public business, according to another at Athens, at an advanced age, and in the enjoyment of the good opinion of his fellow-citizens. It is certain that he survived the banishment of Themistocles, and his death may be fixed with probability about B. c. 468. He died, as he had lived, poor; and was buried at the public expense, which, if not an evidence of his poverty, must be taken as evidence of his high character; the fact is stated by Demosthenes (Against Aristocrates, c. 54.) as a simple truth well known; it is Plutarch who says he did not leave enough to bury him. His tomb was still in Phalerum in Plutarch's time. His daughters were adopted as the children of the state, which gave them in marriage and a portion with them. His son Lysimachus received a sum of money from the state, and a hundred plethra of planted land (that is, land with vines and