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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Aristides Biography ARISTIDES, called The Just (c.550-467 B.C.). An Athenian Statesman. He was the son of Lysimachus and was descended from one of the best families in Athens. At the battle of Marathon (490 b.c.) he was one of the 10 Athenian generals who held command successively, each for a single day. In the following year he was chief archon. His policy in state polities was opposed to that of the other great statesman of his time, Themistocles and the rivalry between these two became so pronounced that the Athenians, in order to obtain quiet, finally resorted to ostracism (q.v.). Aristides was banished, and retired to Ægina, Athens's bitter enemy, apparently in 484. The story is told that on the day of voting an ignorant citizen, personally unknown to the statesman, requested Aristides himself to write the name "Aristides" on the ostrakon. When Aristides asked him why he was voting so, he answered: "Because I am tired of hearing him always called "The Just." Four years later, when Xerxes invaded Greece, a general amnesty for all exiles was declared by Athens, and in consequence Aristides joined the Athenian fleet at Salamis and took a prominent part in the battle that followed. Being thus restored to favor, he was appointed commander of the Athenian troops that fought at Platæa in 479. In 477 he was joint commander with Oimon of the Athenian contingent in the combined Greek fleet which was engaged in driving the Persians from the Greek cities on the coast of the Ægean Sea. After the fall of Pausanias, he took the chief part in organizing the Delian League (see Delos). It is said that after the battle of Platæa he carried through a law opening the arohonship to the whole body of Athenian citizens. He died poor, in 467, leaving a son and two daughters. His body was carried from Pontus to Athens and buried at Phalerum, at the cost of the state. His life, by Plutarch, was well translated by B. Perrin, Plutarch's Themistocles and Aristides (New York, 1901). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 105. |