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Plutarch's Pericles The “Dryden
Version” as edited ca. 1860 by Arthur Hugh Clough (and Paul Swarney
in 2006) 1. 1. CAESAR once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome,
carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and
monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to
ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by
that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and
lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has
implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind. 2. With
like reason may we blame those who misuse that love of inquiry and
observation which nature has implanted in our souls, by expending it on
objects unworthy of the attention either of their eyes or their ears, while
they disregard such as are excellent in themselves,
and would do them good. The
mere outward sense, being passive in responding to the impression of the
objects that come in its way and strike upon it, perhaps cannot help
entertaining and taking notice of everything that addresses it, be it what it
will, useful or unuseful; 3. but, in the exercise of his mental perception,
every man, if he chooses, has a natural power to turn himself upon all
occasions, and to change and shift with the greatest ease to what he shall
himself judge desirable. So that it becomes a man's duty to pursue and make
after the best and choicest of everything, that he may not only employ his
contemplation, but may also be improved by it. For as that colour is more
suitable to the eye whose freshness and pleasantness stimulates and strengthens
the sight, so a man ought to apply his intellectual perception to such
objects as, with the sense of delight, are apt to call it forth, and allure
it to its own proper good and advantage. 4. Such objects we find
in the acts of virtue, which also produce in the minds of mere readers about
them an emulation and eagerness that may lead them
on to imitation. In other things there does not immediately follow upon the
admiration and liking of the thing done any strong desire of doing the like.
Nay, many times, on the very contrary, when we are pleased with the work, we
slight and set little by the workman or artist himself, as for instance, in
perfumes and purple dyes, we are taken with the things themselves well
enough, but do not think dyers and perfumers otherwise than low and sordid
people. 5. It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people
told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper. It
may be so, said
he, but he is but a wretched human being, otherwise he
would not have been an excellent piper. And King Philip,
to the same purpose, told his son Alexander, who once at a merry-meeting
played a piece of music charmingly and skilfully, Are
you not ashamed, son, to play so well? For it is enough
for a king or prince to find leisure sometimes to hear others sing, and he
does the muses quite honour enough when he pleases to be but present, while
others engage in such exercises and trials of skill. 2. 1.
He who busies himself in mean occupations
produces, in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and
indisposition to what is really good. Nor did any generous and ingenuous
young man, at the sight of the statue of Zeus at Pisa, ever desire to be a
Phidias, or on seeing that of Hera at Argos, long to be a Polycletus, or feel
induced by his pleasure in their poems to wish to be an Anacreon or Philetas
or Archilochus. 2. For it does not necessarily follow, that, if a
piece of work please for its gracefulness, therefore he that wrought it deserves
our admiration. Whence it is that neither do such things really profit or
advantage the beholders, upon the sight of which no zeal arises for the
imitation of them, nor any impulse or inclination,
which may prompt any desire or endeavour of doing the like. But virtue, by
the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men's minds as to create at
once both admiration of the things done and desire to imitate the doers of
them. 3. The goods of fortune we would possess and would
enjoy; those of virtue we long to practise and exercise: we are content to
receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from
us. Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it
inspires an impulse to practice, and influences the mind and character not by
a mere imitation which we look at, but by the statement of the fact creates a
moral purpose which we form. 4. And so we have thought
fit to spend our time and pains in writing of the lives of famous persons;
and have composed this tenth book upon that subject, containing the life of
Pericles, and that of Fabius Maximus, who carried on the war against
Hannibal, men alike, as in their other virtues and good parts, so especially
in their mind and upright temper and demeanour, and in that capacity to bear
the cross-grained humours of their fellow-citizens and colleagues in office,
which made them both most useful and serviceable to the interests of their
countries. Whether we take a right aim at our intended purpose, it is left to
the reader to judge by what he shall here find. 3. 1.
Pericles was of the tribe Acamantis, and the deme
Cholargus, of the noblest birth both on his father's and mother's side.
Xanthippus, his father, who defeated the King of Persia's generals in the
battle of Mycale, took to wife Agariste, the grandchild of Clisthenes, who
drove out the sons of Pisistratus, and nobly put an end to their tyrannical
usurpation, and, moreover, made a body of laws, and settled a model of
government admirably tempered and suited for the harmony and safety of the
people. 2. His mother, being near
her time, fancied in a dream that she was brought to bed of a lion, and a few
days after was delivered of Pericles, in other respects perfectly formed,
only his head was somewhat longish and out of proportion. For which reason
almost all the images and statues that were made of him have the head covered
with a helmet, the workmen apparently being willing not to expose him. 3. The
poets of Old Chronos once took queen Sedition to wife: and,
in the Nemesis, addresses him- Come, Zeus, you
head of Gods. 4. And a second,
Teleclides, says, that now, in embarrassment with political difficulties, he
sits in the city- Fainting underneath the load And
a third, Eupolis, in the comedy called the Demi, in a series of
questions about each of the demagogues, whom he makes in the play to come up
from hell, upon Pericles being named last, exclaims- And here by way of summary, now we've done, 4. 1. The master that taught him music, most authors are
agreed, was Damon (whose name, they say, ought to be pronounced with the
first syllable short). Though Aristotle tells us that he was thoroughly
practised in all accomplishments of this kind by Pythoclides. Damon, it is
not unlikely, being a sophist, out of policy sheltered himself
under the profession of music to conceal from people in general his skill in
other things, and under this pretence attended Pericles, the young athlete of
politics, so to say, as his training-master in these exercises. 2.
Damon's lyre, however, did not prove altogether a successful blind; he was
banished the country by ostracism for ten years, as a dangerous intermeddler
and a favourer of arbitrary power, and, by this means, gave the stage
occasion to play upon him. As, for instance, Plato, the comic poet,
introduces a character who questions him- ...
Tell me, if you please, 3. Pericles, also, was a
hearer of Zeno, the Eleatic, who treated of natural philosophy in the same
manner as Parmenides did, but had also perfected himself in an art of his own
for refuting and silencing opponents in argument; as Timon of Phlius
describes it- Also the two-edged tongue of mighty Zeno, who, 4. But he that saw most
of Pericles, and furnished him most especially with a weight and grandeur of
sense, superior to all arts of popularity, and in general gave him his
elevation and sublimity of purpose and of character, was Anaxagoras of
Clazomenae; whom the men of those times called by the name of Nous, that is,
mind, or intelligence, whether in admiration of the great and extraordinary
gift he had displayed for the science of nature, or because that he was the
first of the philosophers who did not refer the first ordering of the world
to fortune or chance, nor to necessity or compulsion, but to a pure, unadulterated
intelligence, which in all other existing mixed and compound things acts as a
principle of discrimination, and of combination of like with like. 5. 1. For
this man, Pericles entertained an extraordinary esteem and admiration, and
filling himself with this lofty and, as they call it, up-in-the-air sort of
thought, derived hence not merely, as was natural, elevation of purpose and
dignity of language, raised far above the base and dishonest buffooneries of
mob eloquence, but, besides this, a composure of countenance, and a serenity
and calmness in all his movements, which no occurrence whilst he was speaking
could disturb, a sustained and even tone of voice, and various other
advantages of a similar kind, which produced the greatest effect on his hearers.
2. Once, after being reviled and ill-spoken of all day
long in his own hearing by some vile and abandoned fellow in the open
market-place, where he was engaged in the despatch of some urgent affair. He
continued his business in perfect silence, and in the evening returned home
composedly, the man still dogging him at the heels, and pelting him all the
way with abuse and foul language; 3. and stepping into his
house, it being by this time dark, he ordered one of his servants to take a
light, and to go along with the man and see him safe home. Ion, it is true,
the dramatic poet, says that Pericles's manner in company was somewhat
over-assuming and pompous; and that into his high-bearing there entered a
good deal of slightingness and scorn of others; he reserves his commendation
for Cimon's ease and pliancy and natural grace in society. 4. Ion,
however, who must needs make virtue, like a show of tragedies, include some
comic scenes, we shall not altogether rely upon; Zeno used to bid those who
called Pericles's gravity the affectation of a charlatan, to go and affect
the like themselves; inasmuch as this mere counterfeiting might in time
insensibly instil into them a real love and knowledge of those noble
qualities. 6. 1. Nor
were these the only advantages which Pericles derived from Anaxagoras's
acquaintance; he seems also to have become, by his instructions, superior to
that superstition with which an ignorant wonder at appearances, for example,
in the heavens, possesses the minds of people unacquainted with their causes,
eager for the supernatural, and excitable through an inexperience which the
knowledge of natural causes removes, replacing wild and timid superstition by
the good hope and assurance of an intelligent piety. 2. There is a story, that
once Pericles had brought to him from a country farm of his a ram's head with
one horn, and that Lampon, the diviner, upon seeing the horn grow strong and
solid out of the midst of the forehead, gave it as his judgment, that, there
being at that time two potent factions, parties, or interests in the city,
the one of Thucydides and the other of Pericles, the government would come
about to that one of them in whose ground or estate this token or indication
of fate had shown itself. But that Anaxagoras, cleaving the skull in sunder,
showed to the bystanders that the brain had not filled up its natural place,
but being oblong, like an egg, had collected from all parts of the vessel
which contained it in a point to that place from whence the root of the horn
took its rise. 3. And that, for that time, Anaxagoras was much
admired for his explanation by those that were present; and Lampon no less a
little while after, when Thucydides was overpowered, and the whole affairs of
the state and government came into the hands of Pericles. And
yet, in my opinion, it is no absurdity to say that they were both in the
right, both natural philosopher and diviner, one
justly detecting the cause of this event, by which it was produced, the other
the end for which it was designed. For it was the business of the one to find
out and give an account of what it was made, and in what manner and by what
means it grew as it did; and of the other to foretell to what end and purpose
it was so made, and what it might mean or portend. 4. Those
who say that to find out the cause of a prodigy is in effect to destroy its
supposed signification as such, do not take notice, that, at the same time,
together with divine prodigies, they also do away with signs and signals of
human art and concert, as, for instance, the clashings of quoits,
fire-beacons, and the shadows of sun-dials, every one of which has its cause,
and by that cause and contrivance is a sign of something else. But these are
subjects, perhaps, that would better befit another place. 7. 1. Pericles, while yet but a young man, stood in
considerable apprehension of the people, as he was thought in face and figure
to be very like the tyrant Pisistratus, and those of great age remarked upon
the sweetness of his voice, and his volubility and rapidity in speaking, and
were struck with amazement at the resemblance. Reflecting, too, that he had a
considerable estate, and was descended of a noble family, and had friends of
great influence, he was fearful all this might bring him to be banished as a
dangerous person, and for this reason meddled not at all with state affairs,
but in military service showed himself of a brave and intrepid nature. 2. But
when Aristides was now dead, and Themistocles driven out, and Cimon was for
the most part kept abroad by the expeditions he made in parts out of Greece,
Pericles, seeing things in this posture, now advanced and took his side, not
with the rich and few, but with the many and poor, contrary to his natural
bent, which was far from democratical; 3. but,
most likely fearing he might fall under suspicion of aiming at arbitrary
power, and seeing Cimon on the side of the aristocracy, and much beloved by
the better and more distinguished people, he joined the party of the people,
with a view at once both to secure himself and procure means against Cimon. 4. He immediately
entered, also, on quite a new course of life and management of his time. For
he was never seen to walk in any street but that which led to the
market-place and council-hall, and he avoided invitations of friends to
supper, and all friendly visiting and intercourse whatever; in all the time
he had to do with the public, which was not a little, he was never known to
have gone to any of his friends to a supper, except that once when his near
kinsman Euryptolemus married, he remained present till the ceremony of the
drink-offering, and then immediately rose from table and went his way. 5. For
these friendly meetings are very quick to defeat any assumed superiority, and
in intimate familiarity an exterior of gravity is hard to maintain. Real
excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into; and in
really good men, nothing which meets the eyes of external observers so truly
deserves their admiration, as their daily common life does that of their
nearer friends. Pericles, however, to avoid any feeling of commonness, or any
satiety on the part of the people, presented himself at intervals only, not
speaking to every business, nor at all times coming into the assembly, but,
as Critolaus says, reserving himself, like the Salaminian galley, for great
occasions, while matters of lesser importance were despatched by friends or
other speakers under his direction. 6. And of this number we are told Ephialtes made one,
who broke the power of the council of Areopagus, giving the people, according
to Plato's expression, so copious and so strong a draught of liberty, that
growing wild and unruly, like an unmanageable horse, it, as the comic poets
say- -got
beyond all keeping in, 8. 1. The
style of speaking most consonant to his form of life and the dignity of his
views he found, so to say, in the tones of that instrument with which
Anaxagoras had furnished him; of his teaching he continually availed himself,
and deepened the colours of rhetoric with the dye of natural science. For
having, in addition to his great natural genius, attained, by the study of
nature, to use the words of the divine Plato, this height of intelligence, and
this universal consummating power, and drawing hence whatever might be of
advantage to him in the art of speaking, he showed himself far superior to
all others. 2. Upon which account, they say, he had his nickname
given him; though some are of opinion he was named the Olympian from the
public buildings with which he adorned the city; and others again, from his
great power in public affairs, whether of war or peace. Nor is it unlikely
that the confluence of many attributes may have conferred it on him. 3.
However, the comedies represented at the time, which, both in good earnest
and in merriment, let fly many hard words at him, plainly show that he got
that appellation especially from his speaking; they speak of his thundering
and lightning when he harangued the people, and of his
wielding a dreadful thunderbolt in his tongue. A
saying also of Thucydides, the son of Melesias, stands on record, spoken by
him by way of pleasantry upon Pericles's dexterity. 4.
Thucydides was one of the noble and distinguished citizens, and had been his
greatest opponent; and, when Archidamus, the King of the Lacedaemonians,
asked him whether he or Pericles were the better wrestler, he made this
answer: When I, said he, have
thrown him and given him a fair fall, by persisting that he had no fall, he
gets the better of me, and makes the bystanders, in spite of their own eyes,
believe him. The truth, however, is, that Pericles himself
was very careful what and how he was to speak, insomuch that, whenever he
went up to the hustings, he prayed the gods that no one word might unawares
slip from him unsuitable to the matter and the occasion. 5. He has left nothing in
writing behind him, except some decrees; and there are but very few of his
sayings recorded; one, for example, is, that he said Aegina must, like a
gathering in a man's eye, be removed from Piraeus; and another, that he said
he saw already war moving on its way towards them out of Peloponnesus. Again,
when on a time Sophocles, who was his fellow-commissioner in the generalship,
was going on board with him, and praised the beauty of a youth they met with
in the way to the ship, Sophocles,
said he, a
general ought not only to have clean hands but also clean eyes. 6. And
Stesimbrotus tells us that, in his encomium on those who fell in battle at 9. 1. Since
Thucydides describes the rule of Pericles as an aristocratical government,
that went by the name of demokratia but was, indeed, the supremacy of
a single great man, while many others say, on the contrary, that by him the
common people were first encouraged and led on to such evils as
appropriations of subject territory, allowances for attending theatres,
payments for performing public duties, and by these bad habits were, under
the influence of his public measures, changed from a sober, thrifty people,
that maintained themselves by their own labours, to lovers of expense,
intemperance, and licence, let us examine the cause of this change by the
actual matters of fact. 2. At the first, as has
been said, when he set himself against Cimon's great authority, he did caress
the people. Finding himself come short of his competitor in wealth and money,
by which advantages the other was enabled to take care of the poor, inviting
every day some one or other of the citizens that was in want to supper, and
bestowing clothes on the aged people, and breaking down the hedges and
enclosures of his grounds, that all that would might freely gather what fruit
they pleased, Pericles, thus outdone in popular arts, by the advice of one
Damonides of Oea, as Aristotle states, turned to the distribution of the
public moneys; 3. and in a short time having bought the people over,
what with moneys allowed for shows and for service on juries, and what with
other forms of pay and largess, he made use of them against the council of
Areopagus of which he himself was no member, as having never been appointed
by lot- either chief archon, or lawgiver, or king, or captain. For from of
old these offices were conferred on persons by lot, and they who had
acquitted themselves duly in the discharge of them were advanced to the court
of Areopagus. 4. And so Pericles, having secured his power in
interest with the populace, directed the exertions of his party against this
council with such success, that most of these causes and matters which had
been used to be tried there were, by the agency of Ephialtes, removed from
its cognisance; Cimon, also, was banished by ostracism as a favourer of the
Lacedaemonians and a hater of the people, though in wealth and noble birth he
was among the first, and had won several most glorious victories over the
barbarians, and had filled the city with money and spoils of war; as is recorded
in the history of his life. So vast an authority had Pericles obtained among
the people. 10. 1. The ostracism was limited by law to ten years; but
the Lacedaemonians, in the meantime, entering with a great army into the
territory of Tanagra, and the Athenians going out against them, Cimon, coming
from his banishment before his time was out, put himself in arms and array
with those of his fellow-citizens that were of his own tribe, and desired by
his deeds to wipe off the suspicion of his favouring the Lacedaemonians, by
venturing his own person along with his countrymen. But Pericles's friends,
gathering in a body, forced him to retire as a banished man. 2. For
which cause also Pericles seems to have exerted himself more in that than in
any battle, and to have been conspicuous above all for his exposure of
himself to danger. All Cimon's friends, also, to a man, fell together side by
side, whom Pericles had accused with him of taking part with the
Lacedaemonians. Defeated in this battle on their own frontiers, and expecting
a new and perilous attack with return of spring, the Athenians now felt
regret and sorrow for the loss of Cimon, and repentance for their expulsion
of him. 3. Pericles, being sensible of their feelings, did not
hesitate or delay to gratify it, and himself made
the motion for recalling him home. He, upon his return, concluded a peace
betwixt the two cities; for the Lacedaemonians entertained as kindly feelings
towards him as they did the reverse towards Pericles and the other popular
leaders. 4. Yet some there are who
say that Pericles did not propose the order for Cimon's return till some
private articles of agreement had been made between them, and this by means
of Elpinice, Cimon's sister; that Cimon, namely, should go out to sea with a
fleet of two hundred ships, and be commander-in-chief abroad, with a design
to reduce the King of Persia's territories, and that Pericles should have the
power at home. 5. This Elpinice, it was
thought, had before this time procured some favour for her brother Cimon at
Pericles's hands, and induced him to be more remiss and gentle in urging the
charge when Cimon was tried for his life; for Pericles was one of the
committee appointed by the commons to plead against him. And when Elpinice
came and besought him in her brother's behalf, he answered, with a smile, O
Elpinice, you are too old a woman to undertake such business as this. But,
when he appeared to impeach him, he stood up but once to speak, merely to
acquit himself of his commission, and went out of court, having done Cimon
the least prejudice of any of his accusers. 6. How, then, can one
believe Idomeneus, who charges Pericles as if he had by treachery procured
the murder of Ephialtes, the popular statesman, one who was his friend, and
of his own party in all his political course, out of jealousy, forsooth, and
envy of his great reputation? This historian, it seems, having raked up these
stories, I know not whence, has befouled with them a man who, perchance, was
not altogether free from fault or blame, but yet had a noble spirit, and a
soul that was bent on honour; and where such qualities are, there can no such
cruel and brutal passion find harbour or gain admittance. 7. As to
Ephialtes, the truth of the story, as Aristotle has told it, is this: that
having made himself formidable to the oligarchical party, by being an
uncompromising asserter of the people's rights in calling to account and
prosecuting those who any way wronged them, his enemies, lying in wait for
him, by the means of Aristodicus the Tanagraean, privately despatched him. Cimon,
while he was admiral, ended his days in the Isle of Cyprus. 11. 1. And the aristocratical party, seeing that Pericles
was already before this grown to be the greatest and foremost man of all the
city, but nevertheless wishing there should be somebody set up against him,
to blunt and turn the edge of his power, that it might not altogether prove a
monarchy, put forward Thucydides of Alopece, a discreet person, and a near
kinsman of Cimon's, to conduct the opposition against him; 2. who,
indeed, though less skilled in warlike affairs than Cimon was, yet was better
versed in speaking and political business and keeping close guard in the
city, and, engaging with Pericles on the hustings, in a short time brought
the government to an equality of parties. For he would not suffer those who
were called the honest and good (persons of worth and distinction) to be
scattered up and down and mix themselves and be lost among the populace, as
formerly, diminishing and obscuring their superiority amongst the masses; but
taking them apart by themselves and uniting them in one body, by their
combined weight he was able, as it were upon the balance, to make a counterpoise
to the other party. 3. For, indeed, there was
from the beginning a sort of concealed split, or seam, as it might be in a
piece of iron, marking the different popular and aristocratical tendencies;
but the open rivalry and contention of these two opponents made the gash
deep, and severed the city into the two parties of the people and the few. 4. And
so Pericles, at that time, more than at any other, let loose the reins to the
people, and made his policy subservient to their pleasure, contriving continually
to have some great public show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession
or other in the town to please them, coaxing his countrymen like children
with such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying. Besides
that every year he sent out threescore galleys, on board of which there were
numbers of the citizens, who were in pay eight months, learning at the same
time and practising the art of seamanship. 5. He sent, moreover, a
thousand of them into the Chersonese as planters, to share the land among
them by lot, and five hundred more into the isle of Naxos, and half that
number to Andros, a thousand into Thrace to dwell among the Bisaltae, and
others into Italy, when the city Sybaris, which now was called Thurii, was to
be repeopled. And this he did to ease and discharge the city of an idle, and,
by reason of their idleness, a busy meddling crowd of people; and at the same
time to meet the necessities and restore the fortunes of the poor townsmen,
and to intimidate, also, and check their allies from attempting any change,
by posting such garrisons, as it were, in the midst of them. 12. 1.
That which gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of Athens, and the
greatest admiration and even astonishment to all strangers, and that which
now is Greece's only evidence that the power she boasts of and her ancient
wealth are no romance or idle story, was his construction of the public and
sacred buildings. Yet this was that of all his actions in the government
which his enemies most looked askance upon and cavilled at in the popular
assemblies, crying out how that the commonwealth of Athens had lost its
reputation and was ill-spoken of abroad for removing the common treasure of
the Greeks from the isle of Delos into their own custody; 2. and
how that their fairest excuse for so doing, namely, that they took it away
for fear the barbarians should seize it, and on purpose to secure it in a
safe place, this Pericles had made unavailable, and how that Greece
cannot but resent it as an insufferable affront, and consider herself to be
tyrannized over openly, when she sees the treasure, which was contributed by
her upon a necessity for the war, wantonly lavished out by us upon our city,
to gild her all over, and to adorn and set her forth, as it were some vain
woman, hung round with precious stones and figures and temples, which cost a
world of money. 3. Pericles, on the other
hand, informed the people, that they were in no way obliged to give any
account of those moneys to their allies, so long as they maintained their
defence, and kept off the barbarians from attacking them; while in the
meantime they did not so much as supply one horse or man or ship, but only
found money for the service; which money,
said he, is
not theirs that give it, but theirs that receive it, if so be they perform
the conditions upon which they receive it. 4. And
that it was good reason, that, now the city was sufficiently provided and
stored with all things necessary for the war, they should convert the
overplus of its wealth to such undertakings as would hereafter, when
completed, give them eternal honour, and, for the present, while in process,
freely supply all the inhabitants with plenty. With their variety of
workmanship and of occasions for service, which summon all arts and trades
and require all hands to be employed about them, they do actually put the
whole city, in a manner, into state-pay; while at the same time she is both
beautiful and maintained by herself. 5. For as those who are of age and strength for war
are provided for and maintained in the armaments abroad by their pay out of
the public stock, so, it being his desire and design that the undisciplined
mechanic multitude that stayed at home should not go without their share of
public salaries, and yet should not have them given them for sitting still
and doing nothing, to that end he thought fit to bring in among them, with
the approbation of the people, these vast projects of buildings and designs
of work, that would be of some continuance before they were finished, and
would give employment to numerous arts, so that the part of the people that
stayed at home might, no less than those that were at sea or in garrisons or
on expeditions, have a fair and just occasion of receiving the benefit and
having their share of the public moneys. 6. The materials were
stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypresswood; and the arts or trades that
wrought and fashioned them were smiths and carpenters, moulders, founders and
braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters,
embroiderers, turners; those again that conveyed them to the town for use,
merchants and mariners and ship-masters by sea, 7. and by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, wagoners,
rope-makers, flax-workers, shoemakers and leather-dressers, road-makers,
miners. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his
particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of
journeymen and labourers belonging to it banded together as in array, to be
as it were the instrument and body for the performance of the service. Thus,
to say all in a word, the occasions and services of these public works
distributed plenty through every age and condition. 13. 1. As
then grew the works up, no less stately in size than exquisite in form, the
workmen striving to outvie the material and the design with the beauty of
their workmanship, yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of
their execution. Undertakings,
any one of which singly might have required, they thought, for their
completion, several successions and ages of men, were every one of them
accomplished in the height and prime of one man's political service. 2.
Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus the
painter boast of despatching his work with speed and ease, replied, I
take a long time. For ease and speed in doing a thing do not
give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty; the expenditure of
time allowed to a man's pains beforehand for the production of a thing is
repaid by way of interest with a vital force for the preservation when once
produced. 3. For which reason Pericles's works are especially
admired, as having been made quickly, to last long. For every particular
piece of his work was immediately, even at that time, for its beauty and
elegance, antique; and yet in its vigour and freshness looks to this day as
if it were just executed. There is a sort of bloom of newness upon those
works of his, preserving them from the touch of time, as if they had some
perennial spirit and undying vitality mingled in the composition of them. 4. Phidias had the
oversight of all the works, and was surveyor-general, though upon the various
portions other great masters and workmen were employed. For Callicrates and
Ictinus built the Parthenon; the chapel at Eleusis, where the mysteries were
celebrated, was begun by Coroebus, who erected the pillars that stand upon
the floor or pavement, and joined them to the architraves; and after his
death Metagenes of Xypete added the frieze and the upper line of columns; 5.
Xenocles of Cholargus roofed or arched the lantern on top of the Tis long since Pericles, if words would do it, The
Odeum, or music-room, which in its interior was full of seats and ranges of
pillars, and outside had its roof made to slope and descend from one single
point at the top, was constructed, we are told, in imitation of the King of
Persia's Pavilion; this likewise by Pericles's order; 6. which
Cratinus again, in his comedy called the Thracian Women, made an
occasion of raillery- So, we see here, Pericles,
also eager for distinction, then first obtained the decree for a contest in
musical skill to be held yearly at the Panathenaea, and he himself, being
chosen judge, arranged the order and method in which the competitors should
sing and play on the flute and on the harp. And both at that time, and at other times also, they sat in this music-room
to see and hear all such trials of skill. 7. The propylaea, or
entrances to the Acropolis, were finished in five years' time, Mnesicles
being the principal architect. A strange accident happened in the course of
building, which showed that the goddess was not averse to the work, but was
aiding and co-operating to bring it to perfection. 8. One
of the artificers, the quickest and the handiest workman among them all, with
a slip of his foot fell down from a great height, and lay in a miserable
condition, the physicians having no hope of his recovery. When Pericles was
in distress about this, Athena appeared to him at night in a dream, and
ordered a course of treatment, which he applied, and in a short time and with
great ease cured the man. And upon this occasion it was that he set up a
brass statue of Athena, surnamed Health, in the citadel near the altar, which
they say was there before. 9. But it was Phidias who wrought the goddess's image
in gold, and he has his name inscribed on the pedestal as the workman of it;
and indeed the whole work in a manner was under his charge, and he had, as we
have said already, the oversight over all the artists and workmen, through
Pericles's friendship for him; and this, indeed, made him much envied, and
his patron shamefully slandered with stories, as if Phidias were in the habit
of receiving, for Pericles's use, freeborn women that came to see the works. 10. The
comic writers of the town, when they had got hold of this story, made much of
it, and bespattered him with all the ribaldry they could invent, charging him
falsely with the wife of Menippus, one who was his friend and served as
lieutenant under him in the wars; and with the birds kept by Pyrilampes, an
acquaintance of Pericles, who, they pretended, used to give presents of
peacocks to Pericles's female friends. 11. And
how can one wonder at any number of strange assertions from men whose whole
lives were devoted to mockery, and who were ready at any time to sacrifice
the reputation of their superiors to vulgar envy and spite, as to some evil
genius, when even Stesimbrotus the Thracian has dared to lay to the charge of
Pericles a monstrous and fabulous piece of criminality with his son's wife? 12. So
very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by
history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long
periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the
contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and
ill-will, partly through favour and flattery, pervert and distort truth. 14. 1.
When the orators, who sided with Thucydides and his party, were at one time
crying out, as their custom was, against Pericles, as one who squandered away
the public money, and made havoc of the state revenues, he rose in the open
assembly and put the question to the people, whether they thought that he had
laid out much; and they saying, Too much, a great deal, Then, said
he, since it is so, let the cost not go to your account,
but to mine; and let the inscription upon the buildings stand in my name. 2. When
they heard him say thus, whether it were out of a surprise to see the
greatness of his spirit or out of emulation of the glory of the works, they cried
aloud, bidding him to spend on, and lay out what he thought fit from the
public purse, and to spare no cost, till all were finished. At
length, coming to a final contest with Thucydides which of the two should
ostracism the other out of the country, and having gone through this peril,
he threw his antagonist out, and broke up the confederacy that had been
organized against him. 15. 1. So that now all schism and division being at an
end, and the city brought to evenness and unity, he got all Athens and all
affairs that pertained to the Athenians into his own hands, their tributes,
their armies, and their galleys, the islands, the sea, and their
wide-extended power, partly over other Greeks and partly over barbarians, and
all that empire, which they possessed, founded and fortified upon subject
nations and royal friendships and alliance. 2. After this he was no
longer the same man he had been before, nor as tame and gentle and familiar
as formerly with the populace, so as readily to yield to their pleasures and
to comply with the desires of the multitude, as a steersman shifts with the
winds. Quitting that loose, remiss, and, in some cases, licentious court of
the popular will, he turned those soft and flowery modulations to the
austerity of aristocratical and regal rule; and employing this uprightly and
undeviatingly for the country's best interests, 3. he
was able generally to lead the people along, with their own wills and
consents, by persuading and showing them what was to be done; and sometimes,
too, urging and pressing them forward extremely against their will, he made
them, whether they would or no, yield submission to what was for their
advantage. In which, to say the truth, he did but like a skilful physician,
who, in a complicated and chronic disease, as he sees occasion, at one while
allows his patient the moderate use of such things as please him, at another
while gives him keen pains and drug to work the cure. 4. For
there arising and growing up, as was natural, all manner of distempered
feelings among a people which had so vast a command and dominion, he alone,
as a great master, knowing how to handle and deal fitly with each one of
them, and, in an especial manner, making that use of hopes and fears, as his
two chief rudders, with the one to check the career of their confidence at
any time, with the other to raise them up and cheer them when under any
discouragement, plainly showed by this, that rhetoric, or the art of
speaking, is, in Plato's language, the government of the souls of men, and
that her chief business is to address the affections and passions, which are
as it were the strings and keys to the soul, and require a skilful and
careful touch to be played on as they should be. 5. The
source of this predominance was not barely his power of language, but, as
Thucydides assures us, the reputation of his life, and the confidence felt in
his character; his manifest freedom from every kind of corruption, and
superiority to all considerations of money. Notwithstanding he had made the
city of Athens, which was great of itself, as great and rich as can be
imagined, and though he were himself in power and interest more than equal to
many kings and absolute rulers, who some of them also bequeathed by will
their power to their children, he, for his part, did not make the patrimony
his father left him greater than it was by one drachma. 16. 1.
Thucydides, indeed, gives a plain statement of the greatness of his power;
and the comic poets, in their spiteful manner, more than hint at it, styling
his companions and friends the new Pisistratidae, and calling on him to
abjure any intention of usurpation, as one whose eminence was too great to be
any longer proportionable to and compatible with a democracy or popular
government. 2. And Teleclides says the Athenians had surrendered
up to him- The tribute of the cities, and with them, the cities
too, Nor
was all this the luck of some happy occasion; nor was it the mere bloom and
grace of a policy that flourished for a season; but having for forty years
together maintained the first place among statesmen such as Ephialtes and
Leocrates and Myronides and Cimon and Tolmides and Thucydides were, 3. after
the defeat and banishment of Thucydides, for no less than fifteen years
longer, in the exercise of one continuous unintermitted command in the
office, to which he was annually re-elected, of General, he preserved his
integrity unspotted; though otherwise he was not altogether idle or careless
in looking after his pecuniary advantage; his paternal estate, which of right
belonged to him, he so ordered that it might neither through negligence he
wasted or lessened, nor yet, being so full of business as he was, cost him
any great trouble or time with taking care of it; and put it into such a way
of management as he thought to be the most easy for himself, and the most
exact. 4. All his yearly products and profits he sold
together in a lump, and supplied his household needs afterwards by buying
everything that he or his family wanted out of the market. Upon which
account, his children, when they grew to age, were not well pleased with his
management, and the women that lived with him were treated with little cost,
and complained of his way of housekeeping, where everything was ordered and
set down from day to day, and reduced to the greatest exactness; since there
was not there, as is usual in a great family and a plentiful estate, anything
to spare, or over and above; but all that went out or came in, all
disbursements and all receipts, proceeded as it were by number and measure. 5. His
manager in all this was a single servant, Evangelus by name, a man either
naturally gifted or instructed by Pericles so as to excel every one in this
art of domestic economy. All
this, in truth, was very little in harmony with Anaxagoras's wisdom; if,
indeed, it be true that he, by a kind of divine impulse and greatness of
spirit, voluntarily quitted his house, and left his land to lie fallow and to
be grazed by sheep like a common. 6. But the life of a contemplative philosopher and
that of an active statesman are, I presume, not the same thing; for the one
merely employs, upon great and good objects of thought, an intelligence that
requires no aid of instruments nor supply of any external materials; whereas
the other, who tempers and applies his virtue to human uses, may have
occasion for affluence, not as a matter of necessity, but as a noble thing;
which was Pericles's case, who relieved numerous poor citizens. 7. However, there is a
story that Anaxagoras himself, while Pericles was taken up with public
affairs, lay neglected, and that, now being grown old, he wrapped himself up
with a resolution to die for want of food; which being by chance brought to
Pericles's ear, he was horror-struck, and instantly ran thither, and used all
the arguments and entreaties he could to him, lamenting not so much
Anaxagoras's condition as his own, should he lose such a counsellor as he had
found him to be; and that, upon this, Anaxagoras unfolded his robe, and showing
himself, made answer: Pericles,
said he, even
those who have occasion for a lamp supply it with oil. 17. 1. The
Lacedaemonians beginning to show themselves troubled at the growth of the
Athenian power, Pericles, on the other hand, to elevate the people's spirit
yet more, and to raise them to the thought of great actions, proposed a
decree, to summon all the Greeks in what, part soever, whether of Europe or
Asia, every city, little as well as great, to send their deputies to Athens
to a general assembly, or convention, there to consult and advise concerning
the Greek temples which the barbarians had burnt down, and the sacrifices
which were due from them upon vows they had made to their gods for the safety
of Greece when they fought against the barbarians; and also concerning the
navigation of the sea, that they might henceforward pass to and fro and trade
securely and be at peace among themselves. 2. Upon this errand there
were twenty men, of such as were above fifty years of age, sent by commission;
five to summon the Ionians and Dorians in Asia, and the islanders as far as
Lesbos and Rhodes; five to visit all the places in the Hellespont and Thrace,
up to Byzantium; and other five besides these to go to Boeotia and Phocis and
Peloponnesus, and from hence to pass through the Locrians over to the
neighbouring continent as far as Acarnania and Ambracia; 3. and
the rest to take their course through Euboea to the Oetaeans and the Malian
Gulf, and to the Achaeans of Phthiotis and the Thessalians; all of them to
treat with the people as they passed, and persuade them to come and take
their part in the debates for settling the peace and jointly regulating the
affairs of Greece. Nothing
was effected, nor did the cities meet by their
deputies, as was desired; the Lacedaemonians, as it is said, crossing the
design underhand, and the attempt being disappointed and baffled first in 18. 1. In
his military conduct, he gained a great reputation for wariness; he would not
by his good-will engage in any fight which had much uncertainty or hazard; he
did not envy the glory of generals whose rash adventures fortune favoured
with brilliant success, however they were admired by others; nor did he think
them worthy his imitation, but always used to say to his citizens that, so
far as lay in his power, they should continue immortal, and live for ever. 2.
Seeing Tolmides, the son of Tolmaeus, upon the confidence of his former
successes, and flushed with the honour his military actions had procured him,
making preparations to attack the Boeotians in their own country when there
was no likely opportunity, and that he had prevailed with the bravest and
most enterprising of the youth to enlist themselves as volunteers in the
service, who besides his other force made up a thousand, he endeavoured to
withhold him and to advise him from it in the public assembly, telling him in
a memorable saying of his, which still goes about, that, if he would not take
Pericles's advice, yet he would not do amiss to wait and be ruled by time,
the wisest counsellor of all. 3. This saying, at that time, was but slightly
commended; but within a few days after, when news was brought that Tolmides
himself had been defeated and slain in battle near Coronea, and that many
brave citizens had fallen with him, it gained him great repute as well as
good-will among the people, for wisdom and for love of his countrymen. 19. 1. But of all his expeditions, that to the Chersonese
gave most satisfaction and pleasure, having proved the safety of the Greeks
who inhabited there. For not only by carrying along with him a thousand fresh
citizens of Athens he gave new strength and vigour to the cities, but also by
belting the neck of land, which joins the peninsula to the continent, with
bulwarks and forts from sea to sea, he put a stop to the inroads of the
Thracians, who lay all about the Chersonese, 2. and closed the door against a continual and grievous war,
with which that country had been long harassed, lying exposed to the
encroachments and influx of barbarous neighbours, and groaning under the
evils of a predatory population both upon and within its borders. Nor
was he less admired and talked of abroad for his sailing around the 20. 1.
Entering also the Euxine Sea with a large and finely equipped fleet, he
obtained for the Greek cities any new arrangements they wanted, and entered
into friendly relations with them; and to the barbarous nations, and kings
and chiefs round about them, displayed the greatness of the power of the
Athenians, their perfect ability avid confidence to sail where-ever they had
a mind, and to bring the whole sea under their control. He left the Sinopians
thirteen ships of war, with soldiers under the command of Lamachus, to assist
them against Timesileus the tyrant; 2. and when he and his accomplices had been thrown
out, obtained a decree that six hundred of the Athenians that were willing
should sail to Sinope and plant themselves there with the Sinopians, sharing
among them the houses and land which the tyrant and his party had previously
held. But
in other things he did not comply with the giddy impulses of the citizens,
nor quit his own resolutions to follow their fancies, when, carried away with
the thought of their strength and great success, they were eager to interfere
again in 21 1. But Pericles curbed this passion for foreign
conquest, and unsparingly pruned and cut down their ever busy fancies for a
multitude of undertakings; and directed their power for the most part to
securing and consolidating what they had already got, supposing it would be
quite enough for them to do, if they could keep the Lacedaemonians in check;
to whom he entertained all along a sense of opposition; which, as upon many
other occasions, so he particularly showed by what he did in the time of the
holy war. 2. The Lacedaemonians, having gone with an army to 22. 1. That he did well and wisely in thus restraining the
exertions of the Athenians within the compass of 23 1. When Pericles, in giving up his accounts of this
expedition, stated a disbursement of ten talents, as laid out upon fit
occasion, the people, without any question, nor
troubling themselves to investigate the mystery, freely allowed of it. And
some historians, in which number is Theophrastus the philosopher, have given
it as a truth that Pericles every year used to send privately the sum of ten
talents to Sparta, with which he complimented those in office, to keep off
the war; not to purchase peace neither, but time, that he might prepare at
leisure, and be the better able to carry on war hereafter. 2.
Immediately after this, turning his forces against the revolters, and passing
over into the island of Euboea with fifty sail of ships and five thousand men
in arms, he reduced their cities, and drove out the citizens of the
Chalcidians, called Hippobotae, horse-feeders, the chief persons for wealth
and reputation among them; and removing all the Histiaeans out of the
country, brought in a plantation of Athenians in their room; making them his
one example of severity, because they had captured an Attic ship and killed
all on board. 24. 1. After
this, having made a truce between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians for thirty
years, he ordered, by public decree, the expedition against the isle of In
the comedies she goes by the nicknames of the new Omphale and Deianira, and
again is styled Hera. Cratinus, in downright terms, calls her a harlot. To find him a Hera the goddess of lust It
should seem also that he had a son by her; Eupolis, in his Demi,
introduced Pericles asking after his safety, and Myronides replying- My son? He lives: a man he had been long, 7. Aspasia, they say,
became so celebrated and renowned, that Cyrus, also who made war against
Artaxerxes for the Persian monarchy, gave her whom he loved the best of all
his concubines the name of Aspasia, who before that was called Milto. She was
a Phocaean by birth, the daughter of one Hermotimus, and, when Cyrus fell in
battle, was carried to the king, and had great influence at court. These
things coming into my memory as I am writing this story, it would be
unnatural for me to omit them. 25 1. Pericles, however, was particularly charged with
having proposed to the assembly the war against the Samians, from favour to
the Milesians, upon the entreaty of Aspasia. For the two states were at war
for the possession of Priene; and the Samians, getting the better, refused to
lay down their arms and to have the controversy betwixt them decided by
arbitration before the Athenians. Pericles, therefore, fitting out a fleet,
went and broke up the oligarchical government at 3. But they, however,
immediately revolted, Pisuthnes having privily got away their hostages for
them, and provided them with means for the war. Whereupon Pericles came out
with a fleet a second time against them, and found them not
idle nor slinking away, but manfully resolved to try for the dominion
of the sea. The issue was, that after a sharp sea-fight about the island
called Tragia, Pericles obtained a decisive victory,
having with forty-four ships routed seventy of the enemy's, twenty of which
were carrying soldiers. 26 1. Together with his victory and pursuit, having made
himself master of the port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them
up, who yet, one way or another, still ventured to make sallies, and fight
under the city walls. But after that another greater fleet from Athens was
arrived, and that the Samians were now shut up with a close leaguer on every
side, Pericles, taking with him sixty galleys, sailed out into the main sea,
with the intention, as most authors give the account, to meet a squadron of
Phoenician ships that were coming for the Samians' relief, and to fight them
at as great distance as could be from the island; but, as Stesimbrotus says,
with a design of putting over to Cyprus, which does not seem to be probable. 2. But,
whichever of the two was his intention, it seems to
have been a miscalculation. For on his departure, Melissus, the son of
Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time the general in Samos, despising
either the small number of the ships that were left or the inexperience of
the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the Athenians. And the
Samians having won the battle, and taken several of the men prisoners, and
disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and brought into port
all necessaries they wanted for the war, which they had not before. 3.
Aristotle says, too, that Pericles had been once before this worsted by this
Melissus in a sea-fight. The
Samians, that they might requite an affront which had before been put upon
them, branded the Athenians, whom they took prisoners, in their foreheads,
with the figure of an owl. For so the Athenians had marked them before with a
Samaena, which is a sort of ship, low and flat in the prow, so as to look
snub-nosed, but wide and large and well-spread in the hold, by which it both
carries a large cargo and sails well. 4. And it was so called,
because the first of that kind was seen at For, oh, the
Samians are a lettered people. 27. 1. Pericles, as soon as news was brought him of the
disaster that had befallen his army, made all the haste he could to come in
to their relief, and having defeated Melissus, who bore up against him, and
put the enemy to flight, he immediately proceeded to hem them in with a wall,
resolving to master them and take the town, rather with some cost and time
than with the wounds and hazards of his citizens. 2. But
as it was a hard matter to keep back the Athenians, who were vexed at the
delay, and were eagerly bent to fight, he divided the whole multitude into
eight parts, and arranged by lot that that part which had the white bean
should have leave to feast and take their ease while the other seven were
fighting. And this is the reason, they say, that people, when at any time
they have been merry, and enjoyed themselves, called it white day, in
allusion to this white bean. 3. Ephorus the historian
tells us besides, that Pericles made use of engines of battery in this siege,
being much taken with the curiousness of the invention, with the aid and
presence of Artemon himself, the engineer, who, being lame, used to be
carried about in a litter, where the works required his attendance, and for
that reason was called Periphoretus. But Heraclides Ponticus disproves this
out of Anacreon's poems, where mention is made of this Artemon Periphoretus
several ages before the Samian war, or any of these occurrences. 4. And
he says that Artemon, being a man who loved his ease, and had a great
apprehension of danger, for the most part kept close within doors, having two
of his servants to hold a brazen shield over his head, that nothing might
fall upon him from above; and if he were at any time forced upon necessity to
go abroad, that he was carried about in a little hanging bed, close to the
very ground, and that for this reason he was called Periphoretus. 28 1.In the ninth month, the Samians surrendering
themselves and delivering up the town, Pericles pulled down their walls, and
seized their shipping, and set a fine of a large sum of money upon them, part
of which they paid down at once, and they agreed to bring in the rest by a
certain time, and gave hostages for security. Duris the Samian makes a
tragical drama out of these events, charging the Athenians and Pericles with
a great deal of cruelty, which neither Thucydides, nor Ephorus, nor Aristotle
have given any relation of, 2.and probably with little regard to truth; how, for
example, he brought the captains and soldiers of the alleys into the
market-place at Miletus, and there having bound them fast to boards for ten
days, then, when they were already all but half dead, gave order to have them
killed by beating out their brains with clubs, and their dead bodies to be
flung out into the open streets and fields, unburied. 3. Duris
however, who, even where he has no private feeling concerned, is not wont to
keep his narratives within the limits of truth, is the more likely upon this
occasion to have exaggerated the calamities which befell his country, to
create odium against the Athenians. Pericles however, after the reduction of Old women should
not seek to be perfumed. Ion
says of him, that upon this exploit of his, conquering the Samians, he
indulged very high and proud thoughts of himself: whereas Agamemnon was ten
years taking a barbarous city, he had in nine months' time vanquished and
taken the greatest and most powerful of the Ionians. 6. And
indeed it was not without reason that he assumed this glory to himself, for,
in real truth, there was much uncertainty and great hazard in this great war,
if so be, as Thucydides tells us, the Samian state were within a very little
of wresting the whole power and dominion of the sea out of the Athenians'
hands. 29. 1. After
this was over, the Peloponnesian war beginning to break out in full tide, he
advised the people to send help to the Corcyraeans, who were attacked by the
Corinthians, and to secure to themselves an island possessed of great naval
resources, since the Peloponnesians were already all but in actual
hostilities against them. 2. The people readily consenting to the motion, and
voting an aid and succour for them, he despatched Lacedaemonius, Cimon's son,
having only ten ships with him, as it were out of a design to affront him;
for there was a great kindness and friendship betwixt Cimon's family and the
Lacedaemonians; so, in order that Lacedaemonius might lie the more open to a
charge, or suspicion at least, of favouring the Lacedaemonians and playing false,
if he performed no considerable exploit in this service, he allowed him a
small number of ships, and sent him out against his will; 3. and
indeed he made it somewhat his business to hinder Cimon's sons from rising in
the state, professing that by their very names they were not to be looked
upon as native and true Athenians, but foreigners and strangers, one being
called Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, and the third Eleus and they were
all three of them, it was thought, born of an Arcadian woman. Being, however,
ill spoken of on account of these ten galleys, as having afforded but a small
supply to the people that were in need, and yet given a great advantage to
those who might complain of the act of intervention, Pericles sent out a
larger force afterwards to Corcyra, which arrived after the fight was over. 4. And
when now the Corinthians, angry and indignant with the Athenians, accused
them publicly at 5. Yet notwithstanding
all this, there being embassies sent to Athens, and Archidamus, the King of
the Lacedaemonians, endeavouring to bring the greater part of the complaints
and matters in dispute to a fair determination, and to pacify and allay the
heats of the allies, it is very likely that the war would not upon any other
grounds of quarrel have fallen upon the Athenians, could they have been
prevailed with to repeal the ordinance against the Megarians, and to be
reconciled to them. Upon which account, since Pericles was the man who mainly
opposed it, and stirred up the people's passions to persist in their
contention with the Megarians, he was regarded as the sole cause of the war. 30. 1. They
say, moreover, that ambassadors went, by order, from Lacedaemon to Athens
about this very business, and that when Pericles was urging a certain law
which made it illegal to take down or withdraw the tablet of the decree, one
of the ambassadors, Polyalces by name, said, Well, do not take it down
then, but turn it; there is no law, I suppose, which forbids that; which,
though prettily said, did not move Pericles from his resolution. 2. There
may have been, in all likelihood, something of a secret grudge and private
animosity which he had against the Megarians. Yet, upon a public and open
charge against them, that they had appropriated part of the sacred land on
the frontier, he proposed a decree that a herald should be sent to them, and
the same also to the Lacedaemonians, with an accusation of the Megarians; 3. an order which certainly shows equitable and friendly
proceeding enough. And after that the herald who was sent, by name
Anthemocritus, died, and it was believed that the Megarians had contrived his
death, then Charinus proposed a decree against them, that there should be an
irreconcilable and implacable enmity thenceforward betwixt the two
commonwealths; and that if any one of the Megarians should but set his foot
in Attica, he should be put to death; and that the commanders, when they take
the usual oath, should, over and above that, swear that they will twice every
year make an inroad into the Megarian country; and that Anthemocritus should
be buried near the Thracian Gates, which are now called the Dipylon, or
Double Gate. On
the other hand, the Megarians, utterly denying and disowning the murder of
Anthemocritus, throw the whole matter upon Aspasia and Pericles, availing
themselves of the famous verses in the Acharnians- To 31. 1. The true occasion of the quarrel is not so easy to
find out. But of inducing the refusal to annul the decree, all alike charge
Pericles. Some say he met the request with a positive refusal, out of high
spirit and a view of the state's best interest, accounting that the demand
made in those embassies was designed for a trial of their compliance, and
that a concession would be taken for a confession of weakness as if they
durst not do otherwise; while other some there are who say that it was rather
out of arrogance and a willful spirit of contention, to show his own
strength, that he took occasion to slight the Lacedaemonians. 2. The
worst motive of all, which is confirmed by most witnesses, is to the
following effect: Phidias the Moulder had, as has before been said,
undertaken to make the statue of Athena. Now he, being admitted to friendship
with Pericles, and a great favourite of his, had many enemies upon this
account, who envied and maligned him; who also, to make trial in a case of
his, what kind of judges the commons would prove, should there be occasion to
bring Pericles himself before them, having tampered with Menon, one who had
been a workman with Phidias, stationed him in the market-place, with a
petition desiring public security upon his discovery and impeachment of
Phidias. 3. The people admitting the man to tell his story, and
the prosecution proceeding in the assembly, there was nothing of theft or
cheat proved against him; for Phidias, from the very first beginning, by the
advice of Pericles, had so wrought and wrapt the gold that was used in the
work about the statue, that they might take it all off, and make out the just
weight of it, which Pericles at that time bade the accuser do. 4. But
the reputation of his works was what brought envy upon Phidias, especially
that where he represents the fight of the Amazons upon the goddess's shield,
he had introduced a likeness of himself as a bald old man holding up a great
stone with both hands, and had put in a very fine representation of Pericles
fighting with an Amazon. And the position of the hand which holds out the
spear in front of the face, was ingeniously
contrived to conceal in some degree the likeness, which meantime showed
itself on either side. 5. Phidias then was
carried away to prison, and there died of a disease; but, as some say, of
poison, administered by the enemies of Pericles, to raise a slander, or a
suspicion at least, as though he had procured it. The informer Menon, upon
Glycon's proposal, the people made free from payment of taxes and customs,
and ordered the generals to take care that nobody should do him any hurt. 32. 1. About
the same time, Aspasia was indicted of impiety, upon the complaint of
Hermippus the comedian, who also laid further to her
charge that she received into her house freeborn women for the uses of
Pericles. And Diopithes proposed a decree, that public
accusations should be laid against persons who neglected religion, or taught
new doctrines about things above, directing suspicion, by means of
Anaxagoras, against Pericles himself. 2. The people receiving
and admitting these accusations and complaints, at length, by this means,
they came to enact a decree, at the motion of Dracontides, that Pericles
should bring in the accounts of the moneys he had expended, and lodge them
with the Prytanes; and that the judges, carrying their suffrage from the altar
in the Acropolis, should examine and determine the business in the city. This
last clause Hagnon took out of the decree, and moved that the causes should
be tried before fifteen hundred jurors, whether they should be styled
prosecutions for robbery, or bribery, or any kind of malversation. 3.
Aspasia, Pericles begged off, shedding, as Aeschines says, many tears at the
trial, and personally entreating the jurors. But fearing how it might go with
Anaxagoras, he sent him out of the city. And finding that in Phidias's case
he had miscarried with the people, being afraid of impeachment, he kindled
the war, which hitherto had lingered and smothered, and blew it up into a
flame; hoping, by that means, to disperse and scatter these complaints and
charges, and to allay their jealousy; the city usually throwing herself upon
him alone, and trusting to his sole conduct, upon the urgency of great
affairs and public dangers, by reason of his authority and the sway he bore. These
are given out to have been the reasons which induced Pericles not to suffer
the people of 33. 1. The
Lacedaemonians, for their part, feeling sure that if they could once remove
him, they might be at what terms they pleased with the Athenians, sent them
word that they should expel the Pollution with
which Pericles on the mother's side was tainted, as Thucydides tells us. But
the issue proved quite contrary to what those who sent the message expected;
instead of bringing Pericles under suspicion and reproach, they raised him
into yet greater credit and esteem with the citizens, as a man whom their
enemies most hated and feared. 2. In the same way, also, before Archidamus, who was
at the head of the Peloponnesians, made his invasion into Attica, he told the
Athenians beforehand, that if Archidamus, while he laid waste the rest of the
country, should forbear and spare his estate, either on the ground of
friendship or right of hospitality that was betwixt them, or on purpose to
give his enemies an occasion of traducing him; that then he did freely bestow
upon the state all his land and the buildings upon it for the public use. 3. The
Lacedaemonians, therefore, and their allies, with a great army, invaded the
Athenian territories, under the conduct of King Archidamus, and laying waste
the country, marched on as far as Acharnae, and there pitched their camp,
presuming that the Athenians would never endure that, but would come out and
fight them for their country's and their honour's sake. 4. But
Pericles looked upon it as dangerous to engage in battle, to the risk of the
city itself, against sixty thousand men-at-arms of Peloponnesians and
Boeotians; for so many they were in number that made the inroad at first; and
he endeavoured to appease those who were desirous to fight, and were grieved
and discontented to see how things went, and gave them good words, saying,
that trees, when they are lopped and cut, grow up again
in a short time, but men, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered. 5. He
did not convene the people into an assembly, for fear lest they should force
him to act against his judgment; but, like a skilful steersman or pilot of a
ship, who, when a sudden squall comes on, out at sea, makes all his arrangements,
sees that all is tight and fast, and then follows the dictates of his skill,
and minds the business of the ship, taking no notice of the tears and
entreaties of the sea-sick and fearful passengers, so he, having shut up the
city gates, and placed guards at all posts for security, followed his own
reason and judgment, little regarding those that cried out against him and
were angry at his management, 6. although there were a great many of his friends
that urged him with requests, and many of his enemies threatened and accused
him for doing as he did, and many made songs and lampoons upon him, which
were sung about the town to his disgrace, reproaching him with the cowardly
exercise of his office of general, and the tame abandonment of everything to
the enemy's hands. Cleon,
also, already was among his assailants, making use of the feeling against him
as a step to the leadership of the people, 7. as
appears in the anapaestic verses of Hermippus- Satyr-king, instead of swords, Yet to gnash your teeth you're seen, 34. 1. Pericles, however, was not at all moved by any
attacks, but took all patiently, and submitted in silence to the disgrace
they threw upon him and the ill-will they bore him; and, sending out a fleet
of a hundred galleys to Peloponnesus, he did not go along with it in person,
but stayed behind, that he might watch at home and keep the city under his
own control, till the Peloponnesians broke up their camp and were gone. Yet
to soothe the common people, jaded and distressed with the war, he relieved
them with distributions of public moneys, and ordained new divisions of
subject land. For having turned out all the people of 3. In the first place,
the pestilential disease, or plague, seized upon the city, and ate up all the
flower and prime of their youth and strength. Upon occasion of which, the
people, distempered and afflicted in their souls, as well as in their bodies,
were utterly enraged like madmen against Pericles, and, like patients grown
delirious, sought to lay violent hands on their physician, or, as it were,
their father. They had been possessed, by his enemies, with the belief that
the occasion of the plague was the crowding of the country people together
into the town forced as they were now, 4. in the heat of the
summer-weather, to dwell many of them together even as they could, in small
tenements and stifling hovels, and to be tied to a lazy course of life within
doors, whereas before they lived in a pure, open, and free air. The cause and
author of all this, said they, is he who on account of the war has poured a
multitude of people in upon us within the walls, and uses all these men that
he has here upon no employ or service, but keeps them pent up like cattle, to
be overrun with infection from one another, affording them neither shift of
quarters nor any refreshment.
35. 1. With
the design to remedy these evils, and do the enemy some inconvenience,
Pericles got a hundred and fifty galleys ready, and having embarked many
tried soldiers, both foot and horse, was about to sail out, giving great hope
to his citizens, and no less alarm to his enemies, upon the sight of so great
a force. And now the vessels having their complement of men, and Pericles
being gone aboard his own galley, it happened that the sun was eclipsed, and
it grew dark on a sudden, to the affright of all, for this was looked upon as
extremely ominous. 2. Pericles, therefore, perceiving the steersman
seized with fear and at a loss what to do, took his cloak and held it up
before the man's face, and screening him with it so that he could not see,
asked him whether he imagined there was any great hurt, or the sign of any
great hurt in this, and he answering No, Why, said
he, and what does that differ from this, only that what
has caused that darkness there, is something greater than a cloak? This
is a story which philosophers tell their scholars. 3.
Pericles, however, after putting out to sea, seems not to have done any other
exploit befitting such preparations, and when he had laid siege to the holy
city Epidaurus, which gave him some hope of surrender, miscarried in his
design by reason of the sickness. For it not only seized upon the Athenians,
but upon all others, too, that held any sort of communication with the army.
Finding after this the Athenians ill-affected and highly displeased with him,
he tried and endeavoured what he could to appease and re-encourage them. 4. But
he could not pacify or allay their anger, nor persuade or prevail with them
any way, till they freely passed their votes upon him, resumed their power,
took away his command from him, and fined him in a sum of money; which by
their account that say least, was fifteen talents, while they who reckon
most, name fifty. The name prefixed to the accusation was Cleon, as Idomeneus
tells us; Simmias, according to Theophrastus; and Heraclides Ponticus gives
it as Lacratidas. 36. 1. After this, public troubles were soon to leave him
unmolested; the people, so to say, discharged their passion in their stroke,
and lost their stings in the wound. But his domestic concerns were in an
unhappy condition, many of his friends and acquaintance having died in the
plague time, and those of his family having long since been in disorder and
in a kind of mutiny against him. For the eldest of his lawfully begotten
sons, Xanthippus by name, being naturally prodigal, and marrying a young and
expensive wife, the daughter of Tisander, son of Epilycus, was highly
offended at his father's economy in making him but a scanty allowance, by
little and little at a time. 2. He sent, therefore, to a friend one day and
borrowed some money of him in his father Pericles's name, pretending it was
by his order. The man coming afterward to demand the debt, Pericles was so
far from yielding to pay it, that he entered an action against him. Upon
which the young man, Xanthippus, thought himself so ill-used and disobliged
that he openly reviled his father; telling first, by way of ridicule, stories
about his conversations at home, and the discourses he had with the sophists
and scholars that came to his house. 3. As, for instance, how one who was a practicer of the
five games of skill, having with a dart or javelin unawares against his will
struck and killed Epitimus the Pharsalian, his father spent a whole day with
Protagoras in a serious dispute, whether the javelin, or the man that threw
it, or the masters of the games who appointed these sports, were, according
to the strictest and best reason, to be accounted the cause of this
mischance. Besides this, Stesimbrotus tells us that it was Xanthippus who
spread abroad among the people the infamous story concerning his own wife;
and in general that this difference of the young man's with his father, and
the breach betwixt them, continued never to be healed or made up till his
death. For Xanthippus died in the plague time of the sickness. 4. At
which time Pericles also lost his sister, and the greatest part of his
relations and friends, and those who had been most useful and serviceable to
him in managing the affairs of state. However, he did not shrink or give in
upon these occasions, nor betray or lower his high spirit and the greatness
of his mind under all his misfortunes; he was not even so much as seen to
weep or to mourn, or even attend the burial of any of his friends or
relations, till at last he lost his only remaining legitimate son. 5.
Subdued by this blow, and yet striving still, as far as he could, to maintain
his principle, and to preserve and keep up the greatness of his soul, when he
came, however, to perform the ceremony of putting a garland of flowers upon
the head of the corpse, he was vanquished by his passion at the sight, so
that he burst into exclamations, and shed copious tears, having never done
any such thing in his life before. 37. 1. The
city having made trial of other generals for the conduct of war, and orators
for business of state, when they found there was no one who was of weight
enough for such a charge, or of authority sufficient to be trusted with so
great a command regretted the loss of him, and invited him again to address
and advise them, and to reassume the office of general. He, however, lay at
home in dejection and mourning; but was persuaded by Alcibiades and others of
his friends to come abroad and show himself to the people; 2. who
having, upon his appearance, made their acknowledgments, and apologized for
their untowardly treatment of him he undertook the public affairs once more;
and, being chosen general, requested that the statute concerning base-born
children, which he himself had formerly caused to be made, might be
suspended; that so the name and race of his family might not, for absolute
want of a lawful heir to succeed, be wholly lost and extinguished. 3. The
case of the statute was thus: Pericles, when long ago at the height of his
power in the state, having then, as has been said, children lawfully
begotten, proposed a law that those only should be reputed true citizens of 5. It looked strange,
that a law, which had been carried so far against so many people, should be
cancelled again by the same man that made it; yet the present calamity and
distress which Pericles laboured under in his family broke through all
objections, and prevailed with the Athenians to pity him, as one whose losses
and misfortunes had sufficiently punished his former arrogance and
haughtiness. His sufferings deserved, they thought, their pity, and even
indignation, and his request was such as became a man to ask and men to
grant; they gave him permission to enrol his son in the register of his
fraternity, giving him his own name. This son afterward, after having
defeated the Peloponnesians at Arginusae, was, with his fellow-generals, put
to death by the people. 38. 1. About the time when his son was enrolled, it should
seem the plague seized Pericles, not with sharp and violent fits, as it did
others that had it, but with a dull and lingering distemper, attended with
various changes and alterations, leisurely, by little and little, wasting the
strength of his body, and undermining the noble faculties of his soul. 2. So
that Theophrastus, in his Morals, when discussing whether men's characters
change with their circumstances, and their moral habits, disturbed by the
ailings of their bodies, start aside from the rules of virtue, has left it
upon record, that Pericles, when he was sick, showed one of his friends that
came to visit him an amulet or charm that the women had hung about his neck;
as much as to say, that he was very sick indeed when he would admit of such a
foolery as that was. 3. When he was now near
his end, the best of the citizens and those of his friends who were left
alive, sitting about him, were speaking of the greatness of his merit, and
his power, and reckoning up his famous actions and the number of his
victories; for there were no less than nine trophies, which, as their chief
commander and conqueror of their enemies, he had set up for the honour of the
city. 4. They talked thus together among themselves, as
though he were unable to understand or mind what they said, but had now lost
his consciousness. He had listened, however, all the while, and attended to
all, and, speaking out among them, said that he wondered they should commend
and take notice of things which were as much owing to fortune as to anything
else, and had happened to many other commanders, and, at the same time,
should not speak or make mention of that which was the most excellent and
greatest thing of all. For, said he, no
Athenian, through my means, ever wore mourning. 39. 1. He was indeed a character deserving our high
admiration not only for his equitable and mild temper, which all along in the
many affairs of his life, and the great animosities which he incurred, he
constantly maintained; but also for the high spirit and feeling which made
him regard it, the noblest of all his honours that, in the exercise of such
immense power, he never had gratified his envy or his passion, nor ever had
treated any enemy as irreconcilably opposed to him. 2. And
to me it appears that this one thing gives that otherwise childish and
arrogant title a fitting and becoming significance; so dispassionate a
temper, a life so pure and unblemished, in the height of power and place,
might well be called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of the
divine beings, to whom, as the natural authors of all good and of nothing
evil, we ascribe the rule and government of the world. Not as the poets
represent, who, while confounding us with their ignorant fancies, are themselves
confuted by their own poems and fictions, 3. and call the place,
indeed, where they say the gods make their abode, a secure and quiet seat,
free from all hazards and commotions, untroubled with winds or with clouds,
and equally through all time illumined with a soft serenity and a pure light
as though such were a home most agreeable for a blessed and immortal nature;
and yet, in the meanwhile, affirm that the gods themselves are full of
trouble and enmity and anger and other passions, which no way become or
belong to even men that have any understanding. But this will, perhaps seem a
subject fitter for some other consideration, and that ought to be treated of
in some other place. 4. The course of public
affairs after his death produced a quick and speedy sense of the loss of
Pericles. Those who, while he lived, resented his great authority, as that
which eclipsed themselves, presently after his quitting the stage, making
trial of other orators and demagogues, readily acknowledged that there never
had been in nature such a disposition as his was, more moderate and
reasonable in the height of that state he took upon him, or more grave and
impressive in the mildness which he used. 5. And that invidious
arbitrary power, to which formerly they gave the name of monarchy and
tyranny, did then appear to have been the chief bulwark of public safety; so
great a corruption and such a flood of mischief and vice followed which he,
by keeping weak and low, had withheld from notice, and had prevented from
attaining incurable height through a licentious impunity. Comparison of Pericles and Fabius Maximus 1. 1. WE
have here had two lives rich in examples, both of civil and military
excellence. Let us first compare the two men in their warlike capacity. Pericles
presided in his commonwealth when it was in its most flourishing and opulent
condition, great and growing in power; so that it may be thought it was
rather the common success and fortune that kept him from any fall or
disaster. 2. But the task of Fabius, who undertook the
government in the worst and most difficult times, was not to preserve and
maintain the well-established felicity of a prosperous state, but to raise
and uphold a sinking and ruinous commonwealth. Besides, the victories of
Cimon, the trophies of Myronides and Leocrates, with the many famous exploits
of Tolmides, were employed by Pericles rather to fill the city with festive
entertainments and solemnities than to enlarge and secure its empire. 3.
Whereas, Fabius, when he took upon him the government, had the frightful
object before his eyes of Roman armies destroyed, of their generals and
consuls slain, of lakes and plains and forests strewed with the dead bodies,
and rivers stained with the blood of his fellow-citizens; and yet, with his
mature and solid counsels, with the firmness of his resolution, he, as it
were, put his shoulder to the falling commonwealth, and kept it up from
foundering through the failings and weaknesses of others. 4.
Perhaps it may be more easy to govern a city broken
and tamed with calamities and adversity, and compelled by danger and
necessity to listen to wisdom, than to set a bridle on wantonness and
temerity, and rule a people pampered and restive with long prosperity as were
the Athenians when Pericles held the reins of government. But then again, not
to be daunted nor discomposed with the vast heap of calamities under which
the people of Rome at that time groaned and succumbed, argues a courage in
Fabius and a strength of purpose more than ordinary. 2. 1. We may set Tarentum retaken against 3. 1. As
for their civil policy, it is imputed to Pericles that he occasioned the war,
since no terms of peace, offered by the Lacedaemonians, would content him. It
is true, I presume, that Fabius, also, was not for yielding any point to the
Carthaginians, but was ready to hazard all, rather than lessen the empire of As
to liberality and public spirit, Pericles was eminent in never taking any
gifts, and Fabius, for giving his own money to ransom his soldiers, 4. though the sum did not exceed six talents. Than Pericles,
meantime, no man had ever greater opportunities to enrich himself, having had
presents offered him from so many kings and princes and allies, yet no man
was ever more free from corruption. 5. And
for the beauty and magnificence of temples and public edifices with which he
adorned his country, it must be confessed, that all the ornaments and
structures of Rome, to the time of the Caesars, had nothing to compare,
either in greatness of design or of expense, with the lustre of those which
Pericles only erected at Athens. |