When Themistocles urged the Athenians to increase their fleet, Aristides opposed him with all his strength. And he did this, not because he disliked his rival, but because he believed that it would be better for the State to increase her army rather than to have a powerful navy. About this, as about other important affairs, the two great men disagreed so often and so long, that the people thought the city would be governed better if one of the leaders was ostracised. So they assembled in the market-place, where each was given an oyster-shell on which to write the name of the man he wished to be banished from Athens. As the citizens were busy writing on their shells, a rough country fellow who could not write came up to Aristides and, handing him his shell, asked him to put down the name of Aristides. The countryman did not know that he was speaking to Aristides himself. ‘Has Aristides done you an injury?’ asked the Athenian, as he took the shell. ‘None at all,’ answered the fellow, ‘neither know I the man, but I am tired of everywhere hearing him called the Just.’ Aristides did not answer the ignorant countryman, but he quietly wrote his own name upon the shell and handed it back to its owner. The necessary number of votes being recorded against him he was ostracised. As he left the city he lifted up his hands to heaven and prayed that the Athenians ‘might never have any occasion which should constrain them to remember Aristides.’ And this he did although it was a bitter thing to him to leave the city that he loved so well. In his absence he knew that Themistocles would be able to carry out his plans unopposed, and this added to his pain. But Themistocles was wiser than Aristides when he urged the Athenians to increase their fleet. For although the great king Darius was dead, Xerxes his son was preparing to invade Greece as his father had hoped to do. And without a large and well-equipped fleet, the Athenians would have been unable to meet the Persians at sea. CHAPTER XLIV THE DREAM OF XERXES Xerxes, the new ruler of Persia, looked every inch a king. He was tall and handsome, standing head and shoulders above the great warriors he led to battle. But although he looked a king among men, in character he was most unkingly, for he was both weak and foolish. It is true that he was sometimes good-natured, but it was not wise for his people to trust his temper, for he was often seized by sudden fits of rage, when he would do deeds of terrible cruelty. In 483 B.C. Xerxes put down a revolt in Egypt. Then his captain and kinsman, Mardonius, begged the king to go to Greece to avenge the Persian defeat at Marathon.