Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
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 favored 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 forever. Seeing Tolmides, the
son of Tolmaeus, upon the confidence of his former successes, and
flushed with the honor his military actions had procured him, making
preparation 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 endeavored
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 counselor of all. 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.
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 vigor 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, 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 neighbors, 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 round the
Peloponnesus, having set out from Pegae, or The Fountains, the port of
Megara, with a hundred galleys. For he not only laid waste the sea-
coast, as Tolmides had done before, but also, advancing far up into main
land with the soldiers he had on board, by the terror of his appearance
drove many within their walls; and at Nemea, with main force, routed and
raised a trophy over the Sicyonians, who stood their ground and joined
battle with him. And having taken on board a supply of soldiers into
the galleys, out of Achaia, then in league with Athens he crossed with
the fleet to the opposite continent, and, sailing along by the mouth of
the river Achelous overran Acarnania, and shut up the Oeniadae within
their city walls, and having ravaged and wasted their country, weighed
anchor for home with the double advantage of having shown himself
formidable to his enemies, and at the same time safe and energetic to
his fellow-citizens; for there was not so much as any chance-miscarriage
that happened, the whole voyage through, to those who were under his
charge.
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 and confidence to sail
wherever 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; 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 Egypt, and to disturb the king of
Persia's maritime dominions. Nay, there were a good many who were, even
then, possessed with that unblessed and inauspicious passion for Sicily,
which afterward the orators of Alcibiades's party blew up into a flame.
There were some also who dreamt of Tuscany and of Carthage, and not
without plausible reason in their present large dominion and the
prosperous course of their affairs.
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. The Lacedaemonians, having gone with an army to
Delphi, restored Apollo's temple, which the Phocians had got into their
possession, to the Delphians; immediately after their departure,
Pericles, with another army, came and restored the Phocians. And the
Lacedaemonians having engraven the record of their privilege of
consulting the oracle before others, which the Delphians gave them, upon
the forehead of the brazen wolf which stands there, he, also, having
received from the Phocians the like privilege for the Athenians, had it
cut upon the same wolf of brass on his right side.
That he did well and wisely in thus restraining the exertions of the
Athenians within the compass of Greece, the events themselves that
happened afterward bore sufficient witness. For, in the first place,
the Euboeans revolted, against whom he passed over with forces; and
then, immediately after, news came that the Megarians were turned their
enemies, and a hostile army was upon the borders of Attica, under the
conduct of Plistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians. Wherefore Pericles
came with his army back again in all haste out of Euboea, to meet the
war which threatened at home; and did not venture to engage a numerous
and brave army eager for battle; but perceiving that Plistoanax was a
very young man, and governed himself mostly by the counsel and advice of
Cleandrides, whom the ephors had sent with him, by reason of his youth,
to be a kind of guardian and assistant to him, he privately made trial
of this man's integrity, and, in a short time, having corrupted him with
money, prevailed with him to withdraw the Peloponnesians out of Attica.
When the army had retired and dispersed into their several states, the
Lacedaemonians in anger fined their king in so large a sum of money,
that, unable to pay it, he quitted Lacedaemon; while Cleandrides fled,
and had sentence of death passed upon him in his absence. This was the
father of Gylippus, who overpowered the Athenians in Sicily. And it
seems that this covetousness was an hereditary disease transmitted from
father to son; for Gylippus also afterwards was caught in foul
practices, and expelled from Sparta for it. But this we have told at
large in the account of Lysander.
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.
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.
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 Samos, on the ground, that, when they were bid to leave off
their war with the Milesians, they had not complied. And as these
measures against the Samians are thought to have been taken to please
Aspasia, this may be a fit point for inquiry about the woman, what art
or charming faculty she had that enabled her to captivate, as she did,
the greatest statesmen, and to give the philosophers occasion to speak
so much about her, and that, too, not to her disparagement. That she
was a Milesian by birth, the daughter of Axiochus, is a thing
acknowledged. And they say it was in emulation of Thargelia, a
courtesan of the old Ionian times, that she made her addresses to men of
great power. Thargelia was a great beauty, extremely charming, and at
the same time sagacious; she had numerous suitors among the Greeks, and
brought all who had to do with her over to the Persian interest, and by
their means, being men of the greatest power and station, sowed the
seeds of the Median faction up and down in several cities. Aspasia,
some say, was courted and caressed by Pericles upon account of her
knowledge and skill in politics. Socrates himself would sometimes go to
visit her, and some of his acquaintance with him; and those who
frequented her company would carry their wives with them to listen to
her. Her occupation was any thing but creditable, her house being a
home for young courtesans. Aeschines tells us also, that Lysicles, a
sheep-dealer, a man of low birth and character, by keeping Aspasia
company after Pericles's death, came to be a chief man in Athens. And
in Plato's Menexenus, though we do not take the introduction as quite
serious, still thus much seems to be historical, that she had the repute
of being resorted to by many of the Athenians for instruction in the art
of speaking. Pericles's inclination for her seems, however, to have
rather proceeded from the passion of love. He had a wife that was near
of kin to him, who had been married first to Hipponicus, by whom she had
Callias, surnamed the Rich; and also she brought Pericles, while she
lived with him, two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus. Afterwards, when they
did not well agree nor like to live together, he parted with her, with
her own consent, to another man, and himself took Aspasia, and loved her
with wonderful affection; every day, both as he went out and as he came
in from the marketplace, he saluted and kissed her.
In the comedies she goes by the nicknames of the new Omphale and
Deianira, and again is styled Juno. Cratinus, in downright terms, calls
her a harlot.
To find him a Juno the goddess of lust
Bore that harlot past shame,
Aspasia by name.
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,
But that the harlot-mother did him wrong."