194 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



Popiiliis maluit cum wnoxium pleSli, quatn fe diutius ejfe in timore. 

 His fon Cimon, for the fame debt, was kept in prifon ; and could 

 not have got out of it, if he had not fold his fifter and wife, Elpinice, 

 to a rich man, who was able to pay the debt: But Ihe was fold with 

 her own confent ; for ihe had more generofity than the people of 

 Athens, and declared that llie would not fiifFcr the fon of Miltiades 

 to die in jail, as his father had done. After he was in this manner 

 releafed, he obtained for the people the mod fignal vidories, both 

 by fea and land. And, as they were then overburdened voith their 

 numbers, he led a colony oi 10,000 of them into Thrace ; and hav- 

 ing defeated the Barbarians there, founded a great city, well known, 

 in after times, by the name of Amphipolis. For all this he was re- 

 warded, by the people* with the oftracifm, though, as Cornelius Ne- 

 pos, from whom I have taken this account of him, informs us, he 

 was a man of the mofl fingular benevolence and liberality that 

 perhaps ever exifted, and at the fame time lived in the moft fplen- 

 did, as well as the moft hofpitable, manner. This it is likely was 

 one thing, among others, which provoked that malignant and in- 

 vidious people againft him. 



In the fame way they treated ThemiftocleSj another faviour of 

 Greece ; and who perhaps was the greateft man both in war and 

 in peace, in council and in a£tion, that they ever had. It 

 was to his advice, to leave their city, and to betake themfelves to 

 their fliips, or wooden walls, as the Oracle called them, that they 

 and all the Greeks owed their fafely, when invaded by Xerxes. 



In the fame way they treated not only men of great abilities, but 



of tlie greateft virtues, fuch as Ariftides, who had luch a reputation 



for integrity and juftice in his dealings, that he was furnamed the 



jitjl. But he too was oftracifed, for no other reafon, than this lur- 



name; as one, who voted for his exile, told himfelf. ' 1 do not, (fays 



he, 



