The effect of so rare an example as that of Aristides, was visible even during his lifetime. The Athenians became more virtuous, in imitating their great leader. Such was their sense of his good qualities, that, at the representation of one of the tragedies of Æschylus, when the actor pronounced a sentence concerning moral goodness, the eyes of the audience were all at once turned from the players to Aristides. When he sat as judge, it is said that the plaintiff in his accusation—in order to prejudice him against the defendant—mentioned the injuries he had done to Aristides. “Mention the wrong you have received,” said the equitable Athenian. “I sit here as judge; the lawsuit is yours, not mine.” On one occasion, Themistocles announced to the people of Athens that he had a scheme of the greatest advantage to the state; but it could not be mentioned in a public assembly. 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. He was truly a patriot, for he preferred the good of his country to his own ambition. A candid enemy, an impartial friend, a just administrator of other men’s money—an observer of national faith—he is well entitled to the imperishable monument which is erected in that simple title, The Just!
ÆSOP.
This celebrated inventor of fables was a native of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, and flourished in the time of Solon, about 560 B. C. A life of him was written by a Greek monk, named Planudes, about the middle of the fourteenth century, which passed into circulation as a genuine work, but which is proved to have been a mere fiction. In that work, Æsop is represented as being hunch-backed, and an object of disgust from his deformity. There appears to be no foundation whatever for this story. This invention of the monk, no doubt, had for its object, to give eclat to the beauties of Æsop’s mind, by the contrast of bodily deformity.
Throwing aside the work of Planudes, we are left to grope in obscurity for the real history of the great fabulist. After the most diligent researches, we can do little more than trace the leading incidents of his life. The place of his birth, like that of Homer, is matter of question; Samos, Sardis, Cotiæum in Phrygia, and Mesembria in Thrace, laying claim alike to that honor. The early part of his life was spent in slavery, and the names of three of his masters have been preserved: Dinarchus, an Athenian, in whose service he is said to have acquired a correct and pure knowledge of Greek; Xanthus, a Samian, who figures in Planudes as a philosopher, in order that the capacity of the slave may be set off by the incapacity of the master; and Iadmon or Idmon, another Samian, by whom he was enfranchised.
He acquired a high reputation in Greece for that species of composition, which, after him, was called Æsopian, and, in consequence, was solicited by Crœsus to take up his abode at the Lydian court. Here he is said to have met Solon, and to have rebuked the sage for his uncourtly way of inculcating moral lessons. He is said to have visited Athens during the usurpation of Pisistratus, and to have then composed the fable of Jupiter and the Frogs[13] for the instruction of the citizens.