Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

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

when the man said that he did not know him, but was irritated at his being called the Just, Aristeides said never a word more, but wrote the name on the potsherd, and gave it back to him. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s, Life of Aristeides, chap. vii (323 A); Cornelius Nepos, Aristeides, i. 3.)