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, surnamed The Just, one of the most virtuous characters in ancient history, was the son of Lysimachus, and a native of Athens. He was educated in the principles of Lycurgus, the Lacedemonian legislator, and had Themistocles for his rival. These two celebrated men, although brought up from their infancy together, discovered very different qualities as they advanced in life. Aristides was all candour and concern for the public good: Themistocles was artful, deceitful, and ambitious. Aristides wished to remove such a character from any share in the government, but the intrigues of his enemy prevailed so far as to procure the banishment of Aristides about the year 483 B. C. The practice of ostracism was employed on this occasion, and it is said that a citizen who did not know Aristides came to him, and asked him to write the name of Aristides on his shell. Surprised at this, he asked the man, if Aristides had ever injured him, “Not at all,” replied the other, “but I am weary of hearing him perpetually called The Just” Aristides immediately wrote his name on the shell, and gave it to the man; The Athenians, however, soon repented having banished such a patriot, and recalled him, upon which he went to Themistocles, to engage him to act in concert for the welfare of the state, and his old enemy received this offer with a better grace than his character promised. Aristides persuaded the Greeks to unite against the Persians, and displayed his personal courage at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platsea. He besides established a military chest for the support of the war, and the equity with which he levied taxes for this purpose made his administration be termed the golden age. He died so poor that the republic found it necessary to defray the expences of his funeral, and provide for his son and daughters. The time of his death is not known. Themistocles, Cimpn, and Pericles, filled Athens with superb buildings, vast porticoes, and rich statues, but Aristides adorned it by his virtues. Such is the testimony of Plato, and of impartial posterity. The name of Just was frequently confirmed to him during his life-time, and he appears by every testimony to have been a man of great and inflexible integrity. Plutarch hints at the only blemish in his character, when he informs us that the enmity between him and Themistocles began first in a love affair.

, a native of Athens, of the fifteenth century, and the scholar of Theodore Gaza, was one of those Greeks who about the time of the taking of Constantinople went into the west. At the invitation of Lorenzo de Medici, he became professor of the Greek language at Florence in 1479; where he had for his rival Angelus Politianus, to whom Laurence had committed the tuition of one of his sons. After the death of Laurence, Chalcondyles was invited to Milan by Lewis Sfortia; which invitation he accepted, either because he was tired of contending with Politian, or because he was hurt with Politian’s acknowledged superiority in Latin learning. Such is the usually-received account, which rests only on the authority of Paul Jovius, who was always hostile to the character of Politian; but Mr. Roscoe in his life of Lorenzo has proved that the story is without foundation. At Milan, however, Chalcondyles taught Greek a long time with great reputation; and did not die before 1510, when there is reason to think he was above 80 years of age. Among the learned Greeks whom pope Nicolas V. sent to Rome to translate the Greek authors into Latin, Chalcondyles was one; from which we may collect, that he probably travelled into the west before the taking of Constantinople in 1453, since Nicolas died in 1455. He published a grammar, of which we shall presently take notice; and under his inspection and care was first published at Florence, in 1499, the Greek Lexicon of Suidas. Pierius Valerianus, in his book “De infelicitate literatorum,” says, that Chalcondyles, though a deserving man in his moral as well as literary character, led nevertheless a very unhappy life; and reckons perpetual banishment from his country among the chief of his misfortunes. Others have mentioned domestic evils that have attended him. The particulars of his life are very imperfectly given. Dr. Hody has probably collected all that now can be found, but he has merely given the notices from various authors, without attempting a regular narrative. Some have thought that he was at one time a printer, and that he printed the folio Homer of Florence, which goes by his name, and which was executed in 1488; but this report no doubt arose from the care he took in correcting the press, as the printers’ names are given in that rare edition. The “domestic evils” above alluded to have a better foundation, as he was unhappy in his wife, whose chastity was suspected, and in his sons: Theophilus, the eldest, who taught Greek at Paris, was assassinated in the streets in a riotous squabble; and two others, Saleucus and Basil, both of promising talents, died young.

, was also a native of Athens, who flourished in the latter part of the fifteenth century, but nothing farther is known of his history, and his name is perpetuated only by his work “De Origine et' rebus gestis Turcoman,” Paris, 1650, fol. containing, in ten books, a history of the Turks from 1298 to 1462. He describes the ruin of the empire of Constantinople, and at the end are the “Annales Sultanorum,” translated into Latin by Leunclavius. There is a French translation of it by Blaise de Vignere, 1660, 2 vols. fol. continued by Mezerai and others. It is esteemed a work of considerable authority.