won the prize; Aristeides was choragus; Archestratus taught the chorus.”  Now this, which seems to be the strongest argument of all, is really the weakest.  Epameinondas, whom all men know to have been born and to have passed his life in the greatest possible poverty, and Plato the philosopher, both exhibited excellent choruses, the former bearing the expense of a chorus of men playing on the flute, while the latter exhibited a cyclic[18] chorus of boys.  Plato’s expenses were borne by Dionysius of Syracuse, and those of Epameinondas by Pelopidas and his friends.  Good men do not always refuse to receive presents from their friends, but, though they would scorn to make money by them, they willingly receive them to further an honourable ambition.  Panaetius, moreover, proves that Demetrius is wrong in the matter of the tripods, because from the time of the Persian war to the end of the Peloponnesian war there are only two Aristeides recorded as victors, neither of whom can be identified with the son of Lysimachus, as the father of one of them was Xenophilus, and the other was a much more modern personage, as is proved by his name being written in the characters which came into use after the archonship of Eukleides, and from the name of the poet or teacher of the chorus, Archestratus, whose name we never meet with in the time of the Persian war, but who taught several choruses (that is, wrote several successful plays) during the Peloponnesian war.  These remarks of Panaetius must, however, be received with caution.  As to ostracism, any man of unusual talent, nobility of birth, or remarkable eloquence, was liable to suffer from it, for Damon, the tutor of Perikles, was ostracised, because he was thought to be a man of superior intellect.  Idomeneus tells us that Aristeides obtained the office of archon, not by lot, but by the universal voice of the people.  Now, if he was archon after the battle of Plataea, as Demetrius himself admits, it is highly probable that his great reputation after such glorious successes may have obtained for him an office usually reserved for men of wealth.  Indeed, Demetrius evidently tries to redeem both Aristeides and Sokrates from the reproach of poverty, as though he imagined it to be a great misfortune, for he tells us that Sokrates not only possessed a house, but also seventy minae which were borrowed by Krito.

II.  Aristeides became much attached to Kleisthenes, who established the democratic government after the expulsion of the sons of Peisistratus; but his reverence and admiration for Lykurgus the Lacedaemonian led him to prefer an aristocratic form of government, in which he always met with an opponent in Themistokles, the son of Neokles, the champion of democracy.  Some say that even as children they always took opposite sides, both in play and in serious matters, and so betrayed their several dispositions:  Themistokles being unscrupulous, daring, and careless by what means he obtained success, while the character of Aristeides