Aristides

second, his banishment in ostracism, for no poor men, but only men from great houses which incurred envy because of their family prestige, were liable to ostracism; third, and last, the fact that he left in the precinct of Dionysus as offerings for victory some choregic tripods, which, even in our day, were pointed out as still bearing the inscription: The tribe Antiochis was victorious; Aristides was Choregus; Archestratus was Poet.

Now this last argument, though it seems very strong, is really very weak. For both Epaminondas, who, as all men know, was reared and always lived in great poverty, and Plato the philosopher, took it upon themselves to furnish munificent public performances, the first, of men trained to play the flute, the second, of boys trained to sing and dance; but Plato received the money that he spent thereon from Dion of Syracuse, and Epaminonmas from Pelopidas.

Good men wage no savage and relentless war against the gifts of friends, but while they look upon gifts taken to be stored away and increase the receiver’s wealth as ignoble and mean, they refuse none which promote an unselfish and splendid munificence. However, as regards the tripods, Panaetius tries to show that Demetrius was deceived by identity of name.

From the Persian wars, he says, down to the end of the Peloponnesian war, only two Aristides are recorded as victorious choregi, and neither of them is identical with the son of Lysimachus. One was the son of Xenophilus, and the other lived long afterwards, as is proved by the inscription itself, which is written in the character used after Eucleides,[*]( In 403-402 B.C., when Eucleides was Archon Eponymous, the Ionian alphabet was officially adopted at Athens.) as well as by the last name, Archestratus, of whom there is no record during the Persian wars, while during the time of the Peloponnesian war his name often appears as that of a choral poet.