edit._

With most people, as with most nations, "things are worth what they will
sell for," and the dollar is mightier than the sword. As good as gold
has become a proverb--as though it were the highest standard of
comparison.

Themistocles, having conceived the design of transferring the government
of Greece from the hands of the Lacedaemonians into those of the
Athenians, kept his thoughts continually fixed on this great project.
Being at no time very nice or scrupulous in the choice of his measures,
he thought anything which could tend to the accomplishment of the end he
had in view just and lawful. Accordingly in an assembly of the people
one day, he intimated that he had a very important design to propose; but
he could not communicate it to the public at large, because the greatest
secrecy was necessary to its success, and he therefore desired that they
would appoint a person to whom he might explain himself on the subject.
Aristides was unanimously selected by the assembly, which deferred
entirely to his opinion. Themistocles, taking him aside, told him that
the design he had conceived was to burn the fleet belonging to the rest
of the Grecian states, which then lay in a neighboring port, when Athens
would assuredly become mistress of all Greece. Aristides returned to the
assembly, and declared to them that nothing could be more advantageous to
the commonwealth than the project of Themistocles, but that, at the same
time, nothing in the world could be more unfair. The assembly
unanimously declared that, since such was the case, Themistocles should
wholly abandon his project.

A tragedy by Aeschylus was once represented before the Athenians, in
which it was said of one of the characters, "that he cared not more to be
just than to appear so." At these words all eyes were instantly turned
upon Aristides as the man who, of all the Greeks, most merited that
distinguished reputation. Ever after he received, by universal consent,
the surname of the Just,--a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather
truly divine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and envy
prevailed so far as to procure his banishment for years, upon the unjust
suspicion that his influence with the people was dangerous to their
freedom. When the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides
himself was present in the midst of them, and a stranger who stood near,
and could not write, applied to him to write for him on his shell-ballo