Yet, great and venerable as his character may appear, we must not forget his follies. His vicious partiality for the celebrated courtesan, Aspasia, justly subjected him to the ridicule and censure of his fellow-citizens. The greatness of his talents and his services, enabled him to triumph over satire and reproach for the time, but the Athenians had occasion to execrate the memory of a man, who, by his example, corrupted the purity and innocence of their morals, and who, associating licentiousness with talents and public virtue, rendered it almost respectable.
Pericles lost all his legitimate children by the pestilence already mentioned; and to call a natural son by his own name, he was obliged to repeal a law which he had made against spurious children, and which he had enforced with great severity. This son, named Pericles, became one of the ten generals who succeeded Alcibiades in the administration of affairs, and, like his colleagues, he was condemned to death by the Athenians, after the unfortunate battle of Arginusæ.
ARISTIDES.
This great Athenian general and statesman, who took so conspicuous a part in the deliverance of Greece from the Persians, and who has come down to us with the enviable surname of The Just, was the son of Lysimachus and born about the year 550 B. C. We know little of the steps by which he rose to eminence. He was one of the ten generals of the Athenian forces, when they fought with the Persians at Marathon. According to the custom, each general held command of the army for one day, in rotation. Aristides, perceiving the disadvantages of this system, prevailed on his colleagues to give up their command to Miltiades. To this, in a great measure, must be attributed the memorable victory of the Greeks upon that occasion.
The year after this, Aristides was archon; and the ambitious Themistocles, desiring to get rid of him privately circulated a charge that Aristides was aiming at sovereign power. He succeeded finally in causing him to be exiled by the ostracism—a vote of banishment, in which the Athenians used shells for ballots. While the voting, upon this occasion, was going on, Aristides was among the people; a rustic citizen, who did not know him, came up and asked him to write the name of Aristides upon the shell with which he intended to vote. “Has he ever injured you?” said Aristides. “No,” said the voter, “but I am tired of hearing him called the ‘Just!’”
Aristides left Athens, with prayers for its welfare. He was recalled at the end of three years, and, forgetting his injury, devoted himself with ardor and success to the good of his country. In the famous battle of Platea, he commanded the Athenians, and is entitled to a great share of the merit of the splendid victory gained by the Greeks. He died at an advanced age, about 467 B. C. He was so poor that the expenses of his funeral were defrayed at the public charge, and his two daughters, on account of their father’s virtues, received a dowry from the public treasury, when they came to marriageable years.