Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/305

 GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE PERSIAN INVASION. 281 tion on the part of Aristeides,' his defence was successful. He carried the people with him and was acquitted of the charge. Nor was he merely acquitted, but, as might naturally be expected, a reaction took place in his favor: his splendid qualities and exploits were brought impressively before the public mind, and be seemed for the time to acquire greater ascendency than ever.^ Such a charge, and such a failure, must have exasperated to the utmost the animosity between him and his chief opponents, — Aristeides, Kimon, Alkmason, and others ; nor can we wonder that they were anxious to get rid of him by ostracism. In ex- plaining this peculiar process, I have already stated that it could never be raised against any one individual separately and osten- sibly, — and that it could never be brought into operation at all, unless its necessity were made clear, not merely to violent party men, but also to the assembled senate and people, including, of course, a considerable proportion of the more moderate citizens. We may well conceive that the conjuncture was deemed by many dispassionate Athenians well suited for the tutelary intervention of ostracism, the express benefit of which consisted in its sepa- rating political opponents when the antipathy between them threatened to push one or the other into extra-constitutional pro- ceedings, — especially when one of those parties was Themisto- kles, a man alike vast in his abilities and unscrupulous in his morality. Probably also there were not a few who wished to revenge the previous ostracism of Aristeides : and lastly, the friends of Themistokles himself, elate with his acquittal and his seemingly augmented popularity, might indulge hopes that the vote of ostracism would turn out in his favor, and remove one or other of his chief political opponents. From all these circum- stances we learn without astonishment, that a vote of ostracism was soon after resorted to. It ended in the temporary banishment of Themistokles. ' Plutarch, Aristeides, c. 25. rd jiiv TTpuTov hetu. ttjv aTxbJ^vaiv fiiyaq t/v Trapd rote 'Ai?7?vato<f • i/yaTcuv yap avTov 6ia<pEp6vTuc olno?.lTai' fiETo. 61 Tavra, ol iilv, (pofiri'dEVTEi avTov Triv vttep^oXtiv, ol de, (b&ovTjaavTEi r^ io^ij, tup jiev EvspyEaiuv iireXa^ovro, ttjv 6e laxvv /cat rd (bpovrnia TmzEivovv eanevdov.
 * Diodor. xi, 54. tote fj.iv uTreipvye ttjv tijq npoSoaia^ Kpiaw • did Kal