made, 'that the Athenians were as much in fault as he, since they had decreed what he advised,'* could not hold in this case, since the people were kept by Miltiades completely in the dark as to what enterprise he was planning, and they entrusted him with a fleet of seventy sail, and therefore with a body of 14,000 men, from mere confidence in his judgment and military ability, without having any opportunity of judging themselves of the prudence of his undertaking. Miltiades, therefore, was most justly called to an account. The only questions that can fairly arise are, first, ought they to have acquitted him, or remitted his sentence, on account of his former services? secondly, was the fine in which he was cast an excessive one?

Now, with regard to the first of these points, if he had had no reward for his victory at Marathon, then of course he might fairly have required to receive no punishment for his failure at Paros. Or if he had had a very inadequate reward. But we have never heard this even asserted. He had, in fact, received the richest reward that a citizen in a free state can desire or hope for the highest place in the state-the direction of its councils-the complete control of its policy. If he enjoyed his reward but a short time, that was his own fault; for immediately making use of his position to undertake this ill-judged expedition against Paros.

He

Was the penalty, then, excessive? Fifty talents was undoubtedly a large sum for those days. Ten thousand pounds would at no time be a trifling penalty; but, under the circumstances, it was not, perhaps, too large an amount. The expedition itself had probably cost considerably more. The mere pay of the men during the time must have been nearly thirty-five talents.† It was not unfair to call upon Miltiades to reimburse the state for the expense to which he had put it. And there is every reason to think that he was well able to pay such a sum. had been a sovereign, the third of his dynasty. Miltiades, his uncle, was on intimate terms with Croesus. He had also himself married the daughter of a most powerful prince, Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus King of Thrace. Nay, there is yet more direct evidence of his wealth. When he left the Chersonese he loaded five triremes with his money and valuables, four of which came safe to port. The sum, therefore, was not at all excessive for Miltiades. Cimon paid it, and remained one of the wealthiest men in the republic. Miltiades might have had some difficulty in raising so large an amount at a moment's notice, but he could

* Μήτε ἐμὲ δι ̓ ὀργῆς ἔχετε, ᾧ καὶ αὐτοὶ ξυνδιέγνωτε πολεμέιν. Thucyd. ii. 64. † Each man received three oboli a day. They must have been absent from Athens at least twenty-eight days. This would imply an expenditure of thirty-two talents forty minæ. If they were away thirty days the sum would be exactly thirty-five

talents.

easily have collected it in a few days, nor would it have at all seriously impoverished him.

Pass we now to the next supposed case of ingratitude. Aristides ostracised! We have much respect for Aristides-we have a high opinion of his moral character. Without undertaking to believe the tenth part of the gossip which Plutarch relates concerning him, we have no hesitation in taking the general outline of his character as truly depicted by that laborious story-teller. He was that rare thing at Athens-that rare thing, perhaps, among public men anywhere-an honest man. His integrity was unimpeachable. He would neither give nor take a bribe. He scorned to make a profit of the public. With every opportunity of enriching himself, without the least risk, through the public offices which he filled from time to time, he lived and died poor. This was his great praise; we should be puzzled to assign him any other.

Upon this he set up his claim to take the management of the Athenian state. From the death of Miltiades he seems to have enjoyed the Snuayoyia. For awhile there was no one to contest it with him. At length, as the posture of affairs became most critical, there came forward a man of consummate ability,—a mind active and penetrating, rapid in its perceptions and combinations, fertile in expedients, great and bold in its projects and its aims-a mind that took in at a glance all the bearings of every subject, that applied itself with equal facility to them all, that saw the end from the beginning in every case. Themistocles came forward to contest with Aristides the Snuayoyia. It was a struggle between two men,-should Aristides or Themistocles pilot the Athenian state through the difficult voyage on which it was entering? The Athenian people decided to prefer Themistocles. Who shall blame their decision?

Imagine Themistocles ostracised in the year B.C. 485, and Aristides undertaking the conduct of affairs during the time of preparation for the Persian war, and during the actual progress of it. Imagine Aristides having to procure convenient oracles, to bribe an Eucybiades, to cause Xerxes to suspect the fidelity of his Ionian and Carian sailors, to bring about a fight at Salamis,how utterly unequal would he have been to the occasion! Honesty alone does not make a statesman. In critical times something more is needed.

But why ostracise either? Simply because there was no other way of effectually deposing a Snuaywyòs when you had done with him. To have deposed Aristides, and allowed him to remain at Athens, would have been to distract his rival's attention from the public enemy, by giving him in addition a continual contest with a private adversary to keep up. The Athenians were too wise to make so fatal a mistake. They determined to

put an end to the struggle for power between the two rival statesmen before they were called upon to enter upon the great conflict. And having so determined, they did well to prefer retaining for their leader the shrewd, clever, quick-witted Themis

tocles.

This is the true account of honest Aristides' ostracism. We must not be led away by the foolish anecdote-mongers, to imagine that he fell a victim to his own merit, and was banished only because his countrymen could not endure to hear him eternally spoken of as The Just.' A few individuals may have acted on this motive, but the nation which gave him the name can scarcely be supposed to have begrudged it him.

Further, let it be borne in mind that the sentence was remitted within three years' time, and that Aristides thenceforth through his life, and to his death, retained the respect and confidence of his countrymen. Nor did his death put a stop to the kind feeling with which they regarded him. They raised him a monument at the public charge, and settled a pension upon his family. So far were they from ingratitude.

The case of Themistocles himself is the next in order. If the ostracism of Aristides be justified by the uncommon merit of Themistocles, that of Themistocles at least (it may be thought) admits of no defence. Perhaps. But do not let us jump to a conclusion. Let us once more consider the circumstances.

How then had Themistocles used the power with which he had been invested by his countrymen as a reward for his services against the public enemy? He had used it almost entirely as an instrument of extortion, and by means of it had succeeded in accumulating immense riches. He began by levying contributions upon the islanders who had fought on the side of Persia, threatening to turn the fury of the victorious Greeks upon them unless they purchased his good-will by large presents of money. Many were frightened, and consented. Some of these, as Carystus, fared no better than if they had rejected his demands. Afterwards he established a regular system of bribery and corruption throughout the whole of the wide sphere in which Athenian influence was dominant, making it a rule to grant no favour except for money, and selling his influence with his countrymen everywhere to the highest bidder. Thus he became immensely rich. After his flight into Asia, whither his friends conveyed by far the greater portion of his property, the part which remained in the power of the Athenians, and was confiscated, produced to the treasury not less than eighty or a hundred talents! Yet his private patrimony had been but three. By this course of conduct Themistocles had alienated the affections of the smaller Greek states from Athens, and if they were to be gained over, and induced to place Athens instead of Sparta at their head, it was

absolutely necessary that they should be shown that Themistocles was disapproved of, and that there was no intention of continuing his policy. Accordingly Themistocles was ostracised, and his place given to the mild and gentle Cimon, who, combining as he did strict integrity with kind and pleasing manners, was peculiarly fitted to win and to conciliate.

But Athens, it may be thought, owed so much to Themistocles that everything should have been overlooked. No peculation or mismanagement of their affairs on his part, nothing less than downright treason, should have induced them to put a slight upon him. Athens certainly did owe him a mighty debt. She owed her existence to him. It was not in this as in the former attack of Persia. Then all was plain sailing. Any man almost might have done what Miltiades did. Here, without a pilot of consummate skill, shipwreck and utter ruin had been inevitable. But two things must have taken very much from the weight of the obligation under which Themistocles had laid his countrymen. In the first place, it was apparent that he had worked throughout not so much for them as for himself. The purpose of his life,' it has been well said, ' was to make Athens great and powerful, that he himself might move and command in a large sphere.'* This might be a noble ambition,' but still it was ambition,—and so, selfish and interested. This could not but be felt more and more, as time showed the hero of Salamis in his true colours. Further, we cancel obligations by boasting of them. Themistocles, ever since his great deeds were done, had taken care that they should not be forgotten. His temple was a standing memorial of his opinion of his own merits, and in his words he did not scruple to give open utterance to his thoughts on this head. He was ever casting in the teeth of his countrymen that they owed all to him. No sense of obligation could be proof against the annoyance of such reminders, when they occurred continually.

But the ostracism of Themistocles was not the worst that he suffered at the hands of his countrymen. Accused of participation in the schemes of Pausanias, orders were issued for his arrest, and officers sent to seize his person. He fled, and effected his escape to the court of Artaxerxes, where he passed the rest of his days in much favour with the great king, and in great affluence. His flight was construed as an admission of guilt, and at Athens sentence of death was passed upon him, and his goods were confiscated. This certainly seems a lamentable close to the career of so great a man; but were the Athenians to blame for it? What were they to do when such an accusation was made, and supported on no worse evidence than his own hand-writing? Was not it necessary for his own sake, if he *Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 266.

were innocent, that he should clear his character in open court? Ought he not to have wished for and claimed a trial? Instead of doing so, he fled. What other interpretation can be put upon his flight but this-that it arose from consciousness of guilt? At any rate, on his flying the Athenians had no choice how they should act-the law prescribed a certain course-they followed it. How they would have acted had he submitted to stand his trial, is matter of pure conjecture. There is not the slightest ground for thinking that they would have condemned him if innocent.

Cimon's case is next to be considered,-his ostracism, we mean; for there is so much contradiction and discrepancy in the accounts left us of his former prosecution, that we are inclined altogether to discredit it. Cimon had attached himself to the Conservative party in Athens: the party which laboured to maintain the statu quo both internally and externally. He had made himself the great upholder of the Lacedæmonian alliance; and thereby of the policy which sought to maintain the balance of power in Greece, which looked upon the continuance of two rival confederacies as necessary to the well-being of Greece, and shrank from war with Sparta as more to be dreaded than disgrace or contumely. The question of the propriety of his ostracism resolves itself into this-was this policy right or wrong? Would Athens have consulted her true interests by following it, or would she not? Which was the best adviser, Cimon or Pericles?

Could the maintenance of peaceful relations with Sparta have been persisted in without any sacrifice of the national honour,— could Athens have been sure of the position of an equal while she continued the ally of Sparta,-could she have thus obtained full scope for her energies?-undoubtedly peace with her sister and yoke-fellow would have been far preferable to war. But this could not be. The indignity which she had suffered at Ithome showed what she had to expect if she continued her old relations with Lacedæmon; it was plain that Sparta did not look upon her as an equal, but rather as on a par with her other confederates; and that the new rank to which she had risen by being placed at the head of the confederacy against Persia would never be acknowledged until there had first been an open rupture. Nor could she hope till then to obtain a fair field for the exertion of her energies. Spartan jealousy was aroused, and would have thwarted all her schemes, and stood in the way of all her efforts to fulfil her destinies.

In fact, Athens felt that she was called upon to take the lead in Greece. Greece had clearly an important mission to fulfil :

* A contingent was required of Athens, as well as of the other allies of Sparta, to act against Ithome,' says C. F. Hermann.-Pol. Antiq. of Greece, § 36,