Aristaeus

“ However, the Libyan army did not expel the aboriginals, who received the invaders as settlers through compulsion rather than in goodwill. Neither the Libyans nor the native population knew how to build cities. They dwelt in scattered groups, where chance found them a home in cabins or caves.
10.17.3 Years after the Libyans, there came to the island from Greece Aristaeus and his followers. Aristaeus is said to have been a son of Apollo and Cyrene, and they say that, deeply grieved by the fate of Actaeon, and vexed alike with Boeotia and the whole of Greece, he migrated to Sardinia. ”

“ Aristæus, a neighboring prince, fell desperately in love with her, but she flying from his violence, was killed by the bite of a serpent. Her disconsolate husband was so affected at his loss, that he descended by the way of Tænărus to hell, in order to recover his beloved wife. As music and poetry were to Orpheus hereditary talents, he exerted them so powerfully in the infernal regions, that Pluto and Proserpine, touched with compassion, restored to him his consort on condition that he should not look back upon her till they came to the light of the world. ”

“ IX. Aristides, a wise and just Greek, of greatest honour and trust with the Athenians;—he was a great enemy to cabals in government: the reason he renders is, "Because," saith he, "I would not be obliged to authorize injustice." He so much hated covetousness, though he was thrice chosen treasurer of Athens, that he lived and died poor, and that of choice: for being therefore reproached by a rich usurer, he answered, "Thy riches hurt thee more than my poverty hurts me." ”

“ The Athenians being indignant at the claim, Aristides came forward; "To contend with the Tegeatans," said he, "for noble descent and valor, the present time permits not: but this we say to you, O you Spartans, and you the rest of the Greeks, that place neither takes away nor contributes courage: we shall endeavor by crediting and maintaining the post you assign us, to reflect no dishonor on our former performances. For we are come, not to differ with our friends, but to fight our enemies; not to extol our ancestors, but ourselves to behave as valiant men. ”

“ Aristides, less brilliant than his rival, was famous for the stainless integrity and uprightness of his public life, and his name has passed into history as the symbol of unswerving truth and justice. He also contributed largely to the successful leadership of the Hellenic forces against their Asiatic invaders. References: Plutarch’s “Lives,” Grote’s “History of Greece,” Curtius’s “History of Greece.”]
Neither Themistocles nor Aristides could boast of a lineage of gods and heroes like the Æacid Miltiades; [3] both were of middling station and circumstances. ”

“ I. Aristides the contemporary and rival of Themistocles; is banished, — II. After his recall, commands against Mardonius; increases the popularity of the Athenians, — III. Has the care of the treasury, dies poor. I. Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, a native of Athens, was almost of the same age with Themistocles, and contended with him, in consequence, for pre-eminence, as they were determined rivals one to the other ”

“ Aristides was appointed to confer with him. The design was to set fire to the combined fleet of the Greeks, then lying in a neighboring port, by which means the Athenians would acquire the sovereignty of the seas. Aristides returned to the people, and told them that nothing could be more advantageous—yet nothing more unjust. The project was of course abandoned.
The character of Aristides is one of the finest that is handed down by antiquity. To him belongs the rarest of all praises, that of observing justice, not only between man and man, but between nation and nation. ”

“ Having briefly spoken of the divine nature in the terms of Greek philosophy, Aristides proceeds to ask which of all the races of men have at all partaken of the truth about God. Here we have the first attempt at a systematic comparison of ancient religions. For the purpose of his inquiry he adopts an obvious threefold division into idolaters, Jews and Christians. Idolaters, or, as he more gently terms them in addressing the emperor, “those who worship what among you are said to be gods,” he subdivides into the three great world-civilizations—Chaldeans, Greeks and Egyptians. ”

“ But Ariston could not hear their voices. His ears shook with the roar of the mountain. An old man was hugging a chest. Gold coins were spilling out as he ran. Another man was dragging a fainting woman. A young girl ran ahead of them with white face and streaming hair. Ariston stumbled on after this company. A great black slave came swiftly around a corner and ran into him and knocked him over, but fled on without looking back. As the Greek boy fell forward, the rough little pebbles scoured his face. ”

“ After the fight, Themistocles, to sound Aristides, told him they had performed a good piece of service, but there was a better yet to be done, the keeping Asia in Europe, by sailing forthwith to the Hellespont, and cutting in sunder the bridge. But Aristides, with an exclamation, bid him think no more of it, but deliberate and find out means for removing the Mede, as quickly as possible, out of Greece; lest being enclosed, through want of means to escape, necessity should compel him to force his way with so great an army. ”

“ He had a rival in Athens, Aristeides, a man who had grown up with him and played with him as a boy, but who had always taken the opposite sides in whatever they were doing. Unlike Themistocles, Aristeides belonged to a noble family, and whenever Themistocles took the side of the people, Aristeides favoured the nobles. Even as boys they
were at variance with each other, and they soon made proof of their natural inclinations; the one being ready, adventurous and subtle, engaging readily and eagerly in everything ”

“ At this time they devoted themselves to the prosecution of the war and were in high repute among the Greeks, so that the command by sea was conferred upon them, in spite of the opposition of the Lacedaemonians. The leaders of the people during this period were Aristides, of Lysimachus, and Themistocles, son of Lysimachus, and Themistocles, son of Neocles, of whom the latter appeared to devote himself to the conduct of war, while the former had the reputation of being a clever statesman and the most upright man of his time. ”

“ For he, when Themistocles once was saying that he thought the highest virtue of a general was to understand and foreknow the measures the enemy would take, replied, "This, indeed, Themistocles, is simply necessary, but the excellent thing in a general is to keep his hands from taking money." Aristides, moreover, made all the people of Greece swear to keep the league, and himself took the oath in the name of the Athenians, flinging wedges of red hot iron into the sea, after curses against such as should make breach of their vow. ”

“ Aristides, making this proposal and bringing back the ambassadors into the assembly, charged them to tell the Lacedaemonians that all the treasure on the earth or under it, was of less value with the people of Athens, than the liberty of Greece. And, showing the sun to those who came from Mardonius, "as long as that retains the same course, so long," said he, "shall the citizens of Athens wage war with the Persians for the country which has been wasted, and the temples that have been profaned and burnt by them." ”

“ Aristides, therefore, had at first the fortune to be beloved for this surname, but at length envied. Especially when Themistocles spread a rumor amongst the people, that, by determining and judging all matters privately, he had destroyed the courts of judicature, and was secretly making way for a monarchy in his own person, without the assistance of guards. Moreover, the spirit of the people, now grown high, and confident with their late victory, naturally entertained feelings of dislike to all of more than common fame and reputation. ”

“ Though they see their gods eaten by others and by men, and burned, and slain, and rotting, they do not understand concerning them that they are no gods.”
Throughout the whole of the argument there is strong common-sense and a stern severity unrelieved by conscious humour. Aristides is engaged in a real contest; he strikes hard blows, and gives no quarter. He cannot see, as Justin and Clement see, a striving after truth, a feeling after God, in the older religions, or even in the philosophies of Greece. He has no patience with attempts to find a deeper meaning in the stories of the gods. ”

“ And afterwards, when Themistocles was general with absolute power, he assisted him in all ways both in action and counsel; rendering, in consideration of the common security, the greatest enemy he had the most glorious of men. For when Eurybiades was deliberating to desert the isle of Salamis, and the gallies of the barbarians putting out by night to sea surrounded and beset the narrow passage and islands, and nobody was aware how they were environed, Aristides, with great hazard, sailed from Aegina through the enemy's fleet ”

“ Aristeides was a noble and a conservative, and opposed to the changes which Themistocles felt to be so necessary if Athens was to keep her freedom, but he was a man whose honour has never been called in question, who gave of his best to his country without ever asking for reward, and who, when he was later recalled to power and his great rival was falling into disgrace, never, as far as is known, by word or deed, treated him in any way that was mean-spirited or ungenerous. ”

“ O blessed gods!"
But what a sea! It roared and tossed and boiled. While Ariston looked, a ship was picked up and crushed and swallowed. The sea poured up the steep shore for hundreds of feet. Then it rushed back and left its strange fish gasping on the dry land. Great rocks fell from the sky, and steam rose up as they splashed into the water. The sun was growing fainter. The black cloud was coming on. Soon it would be dark. And then what? Ariston lay down where the last huge wave had cooled the ground. "It is all over, Caius," he murmured. "I shall never see Athens again." ”

“ Ariston ran into the court. From the heavens showered a hail of gray, soft little pebbles like beans. They burned his upturned face. They stung his bare arms. He gave a cry and ran back under the porch roof. Then he heard a shrill call above all the clattering. It came from the far end of the house. Ariston ran back into the private court. There lay Caius, his master's little sick son. His couch was under the open sky, and the gray hail was pelting down upon him. He was covering his head with his arms and wailing.
"Little master!" called Ariston. "What is it? What has happened to us?" ”

“ The policy of Aristides was to strengthen the army—that of Themistocles, the navy. Both foresaw the national dangers, but Themistocles felt that the hopes of Greece rested on ships rather than armies to resist the Persians. And his policy was adopted. As the world can not have two suns, so Athens could not be prospered by the presence of two such great men, each advocating different views. One or the other must succumb to the general good, and Aristides was banished by the power of ostracism. ”

“ He is, likewise, stated to have erected an altar to his master inscribing on it that he was a man “whom the wicked ought not even to praise.”
After the death of Plato, Aristotle left Athens and went to live at the court of Hermeias, prince of Atarneus. He had resided here but three years, when Hermeias, falling into the hands of the Persians, was put to death. Aristotle took refuge in Mytilene, the chief city of Lesbos. Here he married Pythias, sister of Hermeias, and who, being exposed to persecution from the Persians, now coming into power there, he saved by a rapid flight. ”

“ Having given audience to the ambassadors, they returned an answer, upon the motion of Aristides, worthy of the highest admiration; declaring, that they forgave their enemies if they thought all things purchasable by wealth, than which they knew nothing of greater value; but that they felt offended at the Lacedaemonians, for looking only to their present poverty and exigence, without any remembrance of their valor and magnanimity, offering them their victuals, to fight in the cause of Greece. ”

“ Some say Aristides died in Pontus, during a voyage upon the affairs of the public. Others that he died of old age at Athens, being in great honor and veneration amongst his fellow-citizens. But Craterus, the Macedonian, relates his death as follows. After the banishment of Themistocles, he says, the people growing insolent, there sprung up a number of false and frivolous accusers, impeaching the best and most influential men and exposing them to the envy of the multitude, whom their good fortune and power had filled with self-conceit. ”

“ Aristides perceived that the Athenians, after their return into the city, were eager for a democracy; and deeming the people to deserve consideration on account of their valiant behavior, as also that it was a matter of difficulty, they being well armed, powerful, and full of spirit with their victories, to oppose them by force, he brought forward a decree, that every one might share in the government, and the archons be chosen out of the whole body of the Athenians. ”