Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Aristeides the Just was always an independent in politics, and avoided political parties, on the ground that influence derived from friends encourages wrongdoing. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Aristeides, chap. ii. (319 F).)

At one time when the Athenians had impetuously determined to vote on ostracism, an ignorant country fellow, holding his potsherd, approached him and bade him write on it the name of Aristeides. Why, said he, do you know Aristeides ? And

He was hostile to Themistocles, [*](Herodotus, viii. 79; Plutarch’s Life of Aristeides, chap. viii. (323 C).) and once, when he was sent as ambassador in his company, he said, Are you willing, Themistocles, that we should leave our hostility behind us at the boundaries ? And then, if it be agreeable, we will take it up again on our return. [*](Cf. Moralia 809 B; Polyaenus, Strategemata, i. 31; and the following (from a newspaper in 1929): Paying a tribute to Senator Robinson, the Democratic member of the conference delegation, Senator Reed said: I can say for him that when his ship sails from New York he quits being a Democrat, just as I quit becoming a Republican, leaving politics behind us at the American shore. )

When he had fixed the contributions that the Greeks were to pay, he returned poorer by exactly as much as he spent on his journey.[*](In 478-477 B.C. Aristeides, because of his reputation for fairness, was chosen to determine the initial contribution which each member of the confederacy of Delos should make to the common cause. Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Aristeides, chap. xxiv. (333 C); Aelian, Varia Historia, xi. 9.)

Aeschylus [*](Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes, 592; Plutarch quotes the lines also in whole or in part in Moralia, 32 D, and 88 B, and Life of Aristeides, chap. iii. (320 B).) wrote referring to Amphiaraus,

His wish is not to seem, but be, the best,[*](On account of the reading δίκαιος in the Life of Aristeides it has been thought that the actor who spoke the words may have substituted the Just for the best when he saw Aristeides in the audience.) Reaping the deep-sown furrow of his mind In which all goodly counsels have their root.