aring this, is
said to have made no reply, but returned the sherd with his own name
inscribed. At his departure from the city, lifting up his hands to
heaven, he made a prayer (the reverse, it would seem, of that of
Achilles), that the Athenians might never have any occasion which should
constrain them to remember Aristides.

But three years afterwards, when Xerxes was marching through Thessaly
and Boeotia into the country of Attica, they repealed the law, and
decreed the return of the banished: chiefly fearing lest Aristides might
join himself to the enemy, and bring over many of his fellow-citizens to
the party of the barbarians; much mistaking the man, who, already before
the decree, was exerting himself to excite and encourage the Greeks to
the defense of their liberty.

After the battle of Salamis, Xerxes, much terrified, immediately
hastened to the Hellespont. But Mardonius was left with the most
serviceable part of the army, about three hundred thousand men, and was
a formidable enemy, confident in his infantry, and writing messages
of defiance to the Greeks: "You have overcome by sea men accustomed
to fight on land and unskilled at the oar; but there lies now the open
country of Thessaly; and the plains of Boeotia offer a broad and worthy
field for brave men, either horse or foot, to contend in."

But he sent privately to the Athenians, both by letter and word of mouth
from the king, promising to rebuild their city, to give them a vast
sum of money, and constitute them lords of all Greece on condition they
would not engage in the war. The Lacedaemonians receiving news of this,
and fearing, dispatched an embassy to the Athenians, entreating that
they would send their wives and children to Sparta, and receive support
from them for their superannuated. For, being despoiled both of their
city and country, the people were suffering extreme distress. Having
given audience to the ambassadors, they returned an answer, upon the
motion of Aristides, worthy of the highest admiration; declaring, that
they forgave their enemies if they thought all things purchasable by
wealth, than which they knew nothing of greater value; but that they
felt offended at the Lacaemonians, for looking only to their present
poverty, without any remembrance of their valor and magnanimity, and
offering them their victuals, to fight in the cause of Greece. Aristides
made this proposal, brought back the ambassadors into the assembly, and
charged