by Clisthenes. It is one thing to preserve, it is another to restore. A people may be deluded under popular pretexts out of the rights they have newly acquired, but they never submit to be openly despoiled of them. Nor can we call that ingratitude which is but the refusal to surrender to the merits of an individual the acquisitions of a nation. All things considered, then, I believe, that if ever ostracism was justifiable, it was so in the case of Cimon--nay, it was perhaps absolutely essential to the preservation of the constitution. His very honesty made him resolute in his attempts against that constitution. His talents, his rank, his fame, his services, only rendered those attempts more dangerous. XIX. Could the reader be induced to view, with an examination equally dispassionate, the several ostracisms of Aristides and Themistocles, he might see equal causes of justification, both in the motives and in the results. The first was absolutely necessary for the defeat of the aristocratic party, and the removal of restrictions on those energies which instantly found the most glorious vents for action; the second was justified by a similar necessity that produced similar effects. To impartial eyes a people may be vindicated without traducing those whom a people are driven to oppose. In such august and complicated trials the accuser and defendant may be both innocent. CHAPTER IV. War between Megara and Corinth.--Megara and Pegae garrisoned by Athenians.--Review of Affairs at the Persian Court.--Accession of Artaxerxes.--Revolt of Egypt under Inarus.--Athenian Expedition to assist Inarus.--Aegina besieged.--The Corinthians defeated.--Spartan Conspiracy with the Athenian Oligarchy.--Battle of Tanagra.--Campaign and Successes of Myronides.--Plot of the Oligarchy against the Republic.--Recall of Cimon.--Long Walls completed.--Aegina reduced.-- Expedition under Tolmides.--Ithome surrenders.--The Insurgents are settled at Naupactus.--Disastrous Termination of the Egyptian Expedition.--The Athenians march into Thessaly to restore Orestes the Tagus.--Campaign under Pericles.--Truce of five Years with the Peloponnesians.--Cimon sets sail for Cyprus.--Pretended Treaty of Peace with Persia.--Death of Cimon.