Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
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 on sun-dials, every one of which
things 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.
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. 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; 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.
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 marketplace and the 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. 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 dispatched by friends or other speakers under
his direction. 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,
Champing at Euboea, and among the islands leaping in."
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 colors 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. 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. 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.
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.
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." And Stesimbrotus tells us, that, in his
encomium on those who fell in battle at Samos, he said they were become
immortal, as the gods were. "For," said he, "we do not see them
themselves, but only by the honors we pay them, and by the benefits they
do us, attribute to them immortality; and the like attributes belong
also to those that die in the service of their country."
Since Thucydides describes the rule of Pericles as an aristocratical
government, that went by the name of a democracy, 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
theaters, 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 labors, to
lovers of expense, intemperance, and license, let us examine the cause
of this change by the actual matters of fact.
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; 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. And so Pericles, having secured his power
and interest with the populace, directed the exertions of his party
against this council with such success, that most of those causes and
matters which had been used to be tried there, were, by the agency of
Ephialtes, removed from its cognizance, Cimon, also, was banished by
ostracism as a favorer 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.
The ostracism was limited by law to ten years; but the Lacedaemonians,
in the mean time, 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 favoring the
Lacedaemonians, by venturing his own person along with his country-men.
But Pericles's friends, gathering in a body, forced him to retire as a
banished man. 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. 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.
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.
This Elpinice, it was thought, had before this time procured some
favor 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.
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