Aristides at first was loved and respected for his surname of the Just, and afterwards envied as much; the latter, chiefly by the management of Themistocles, who gave it out among the people that Aristides had abolished the courts of judicature, by drawing the arbitration of all causes to himself, and so was insensibly gaining sovereign power, though without guards and the other ensigns of it. The people, elevated with the late victory at Marathon, thought themselves capable of everything, and the highest respect little enough for them. Uneasy, therefore, at finding any one citizen rose to such extraordinary honour and distinction, they assembled at Athens from all the towns in Attica, and banished Aristides by the Ostracism; disguising their envy of his character under the specious pretence of guarding against tyranny.

For the Ostracism was not a punishment for crimes and misdemeanours, but was very decently called an humbling and lessening of some excessive influence and power. In reality it was a mild gratification of envy; for by this means, whoever was offended at the growing greatness of another, discharged his spleen, not in anything cruel or inhuman, but only in voting a ten years' banishment. But when it once began to fall upon mean and profligate persons, it was for ever after entirely laid aside; Hyperbolus being the last that was exiled by it.

The reason of its turning upon such a wretch was this. Alcibiades and Nicias, who were persons of the greatest interest in Athens, had each his party; but perceiving that the people were going to proceed to the Ostracism, and that one of them was likely to suffer by it, they consulted together, and joining interests, caused it to fall upon Hyperbolus. Hereupon the people, full of indignation at finding this kind of punishment dishonoured and turned into ridicule, abolished it entirely.

The Ostracism (to give a summary account of it) was conducted in the following manner. Every citizen took a piece of a broken pot, or a shell, on which he wrote the name of the person he wanted to have banished, and carried it to a part of the market-place that was enclosed with wooden rails. The magistrates then counted the number of the shells; and if it amounted not to six thousand, the Ostracism stood for nothing: if it did, they sorted the shells, and the person whose name was found on the greatest number, was declared an exile for ten years, but with permission to enjoy his estate.

At the time that Aristides was banished, when the people were inscribing the names on the shells, it is reported that an illiterate burgher came to Aristides, whom he took for some ordinary person, and, giving him his shell, desired him to write Aristides upon it. The good man, surprised at the adventure, asked him "Whether Aristides had ever injured him?" "No," said he, "nor do I even know him; but it vexes me to hear him everywhere called the Just." Aristides made no answer, but took the shell, and having written his own name upon it, returned it to the man. When he quitted Athens, he lifted up his hands towards heaven, and, agreeably to his character, made a prayer, very different from that of Achilles; namely, "That the people of Athens might never see the day which should force them to remember Aristides."

Plutarch's Lives.

[Notes: Aristides. A prominent citizen of Athens (about the year 490 B.C.) opposed to the more advanced policy of Themistocles, who wished to make the city rely entirely upon her naval power. He was ostracised in 489, but afterwards restored.

Marathon. The victory gained over the Persian invaders, 490 B.C.]

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