ce of the people. Now, if he was archon after the battle
of Plataea, as Demetrius himself admits, it is highly probable that his
great reputation after such glorious successes may have obtained for
him an office usually reserved for men of wealth. Indeed, Demetrius
evidently tries to redeem both Aristeides and Sokrates from the
reproach of poverty, as though he imagined it to be a great
misfortune, for he tells us that Sokrates not only possessed a house,
but also seventy minae which were borrowed by Krito.

II. Aristeides became much attached to Kleisthenes, who established
the democratic government after the expulsion of the sons of
Peisistratus; but his reverence and admiration for Lykurgus the
Lacedaemonian led him to prefer an aristocratic form of government, in
which he always met with an opponent in Themistokles, the son of
Neokles, the champion of democracy. Some say that even as children
they always took opposite sides, both in play and in serious matters,
and so betrayed their several dispositions: Themistokles being
unscrupulous, daring, and careless by what means he obtained success,
while the character of Aristeides was solid and just, incapable of
deceit or artifice even in sport. Ariston of Keos tells us that their
hatred of one another arose from a love affair. Stesilaus of Keos, the
most beautiful youth of his time, was passionately adored by both of
them with an affection which passed all bounds. Nor did they cease
their rivalry when this boy's youthful bloom had passed away, but, as
if this had merely been a preliminary trial, they each plunged into
politics with great vigour and with utterly different views.
Themistokles obtained a large following, and thus became an important
power in the state, so that, when some one said to him that he would
make a very good governor of Athens, provided he were just and
impartial with all, he answered, "Never may I bear rule if my friends
are to reap no more benefit from it than any one else."

Aristeides, on the other hand, pursued his way through political life
unattended, because, in the first place, he neither wished to do wrong
in order to please his friends, nor to vex them by refusing to gratify
their wishes; and also because he observed that many men when they
were supported by a strong party of friends were led into the
commission of wrong and illegal acts. He, therefore, conceived that a
good citizen ought to trust entirely to his own rectitude, both in