Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/556

530 both on the Acropolis, the former completed in 438, 1 the latter left unfinished at Pericles s death ; the magnificent Propyliea or vestibule to the Acropolis, built 437-432 ; and the Odeum or music-hall, on the south-eastern slope of the Acropolis, compitted before 444. The musical contests instituted by Pericles, and for which he himself laid down the rules and acted as judge, took place in the Odeum. Many artists and architects were entrusted with the execution of these great works, but under the direction of the master-mind of Phidias, sculptor, architect, painter, the Michelangelo of antiquity. But Pericles fortified as well as beautified Athens. It had been the policy of Themistocles to make her primarily a naval and commercial power, and to do so he strengthened the marine, and gave to the city as far as possible the advantages of an insular situation by means of fortifications, which rendered both it and its port (the Piraeus) impregnable on the land side. By thus basing the Athenian state on commerce instead of, like Solon, on agriculture, 2 he at the same time transferred the political predominance to the democratic or progressive party, which is as naturally recruited from a commercial as a conservative or aristocratic party is from an agricul tural population. This policy was fully accepted and carried out by Pericles. It was in his time and probably by his advice that the Long Walls were built, which, con necting Athens w r ith Piraeus, converted the capital and its seaport into one vast fortress. 3 Further, in order to train the Athenians in seamanship, he kept a fleet of sixty ships at sea eight months out of every year. The expenses entailed by these great schemes were chiefly defrayed by the annual tribute, which the confederates of Athens originally furnished for the purpose of waging war against Persia, but which Athens, as head of the league, subse quently applied to her own purposes. If, as seems prob able, the transference of the treasury of the league from Delos to Athens, which sealed the conversion of the Athenian headship into an empire, took place between 460 and 454, the step was probably suggested or supported by Pericles, and at all events he managed the fund after, its transference. 4 But, though the diversion of the fund from its original purpose probably did not begin with Pericles, yet, once established, he maintained it unwaver ingly. The Athenians, he held, fulfilled the trust committed to them by defending their allies against all comers, and the tribute (increased during his administration from 460 to 600 talents annually) was their wages, which it was their right and privilege to expend in w r orks which by employ ing labour and stimulating commerce were a present benefit, and by their beauty would be "a joy for ever." That Athens ruled by force, that her empire was in fact a 1 The date of the commencement of the Parthenon is variously put at 444 (Leake), 454 (Michaelis), and 460 (Wachsmuth). From an inscription it would seem that the building of the temple extended at least as far back as 447. See Curtius, Gr. Gesch., ii. p. 852. 2 Solon s classification of the citizens for political purposes rested exclusively on the possession of cultivated land. 3 There were three of these walls, of which the northern (to Piraeus) and the southern (to Phalerum) were completed after the battle of CEuophyta (Thucyd., i. 108) in 456. The foundation of these two walls seems to have been laid by Cimon (Plut., dm., 13) about 462. See Leake s Tujijoyraphy of Athens, i. p. 424. Some scholars, relying on an interpretation of Thucydides (i. 107, 108), suppose that these walls were begun in one year and finished in the next. But considering the length of the walls (8 miles) and their massiveness (as shown by their remains) this seems quite impossible. The middle wall, which ran parallel to the northern wall and at no great distance from it, was built later (it was not begun before 449, Andocides, Dej)ace cum Laced., 7, and the progress was slow, Pint., Per., 13), and there is no doubt that Pericles advised its construction (Plato, Gorgias, 455 E). The wall to Phalerum seems afterwards to have fallen into decay, and the middle wall then went by the name of the southern, and it and the northern were known as the Long Walls (Harpocration, s.v. Sia fjLlcrov rebel s ; Leake, i. p. 427). 4 Justin, iii. 6, 4 ; Diod., xii. 38 ; Curtius, Gr. Gesch., ii. 168, 837. tyranny, he fully admitted, but he justified that tyranny by the high and glorious ends which it subserved. 5 The rise of Pericles to power, though it cannot be followed step by step, has an obvious and sufficient explana tion in his combined wisdom and eloquence. Plato traces his eloquence largely to the influence of Anaxagoras ; in tercourse with that philosopher (he says) filled the mind of Pericles with lofty speculations and a true conception of the nature of intelligence, and hence his oratory possessed the intellectual grandeur and artistic finish characteristic of the highest eloquence (Phsedrus, 270 A). The range and compass of his rhetoric were wonderful, extending from the most winning persuasion to the most overwhelming denunciation. The comic poets of the day, in general very unfriendly to him, speak with admiration of his oratory : " greatest of Grecian tongues," says Cratinus; " persuasion sat on his lips, such was his charm," and "he alone of the orators left his sting in his hearers," says Eupolis ; "he lightened, he thundered," says Aristophanes. His speeches were prepared with conscientious care ; before rising to speak he used to pray that no inappropriate word might fall from his lips. 6 He left no written speeches, 7 but the few sayings of his which have come down to us reveal a passionate imagination such as breathes in the fragments of Sappho. Thus, in speaking of those Avho had died in war, he said that the youth had perished from the city like the spring from the year. 8 He called the hostile island of ^Egina " the eye-sore of the Piraeus," and declared that he saw Avar " lowering from Peloponnesus." Three of his speeches have been reported by Thucydides, who may have heard them, but, though their substance may be correctly recorded, in passing through the medium of the historian s dispassionate mind they have been shorn of the orator s imaginative glow, and in their cold iron logic are hardly to be distinguished from the other speeches in Thucydides. An exception to this is the speech which Thucydides reports as having been delivered by Pericles over the slain in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. This speech stands quite apart from the others ; and as well in particular touches (e.y., the saying that " the grave of great men is the world " ) as in its whole tenor we catch the ring of a great orator, such as Thucydides with all his genius was not. It is probably a fairly close report of the speech actually delivered by Pericles. The first public appearance of Pericles of which we have record probably fell about 463. When Cimon, on his return from the expedition to Thasos, was tried on the utterly improbable charge of having been bribed by the Macedonian king to betray the interests of Athens, Pericles was appointed by the people to assist in conduct ing the prosecution ; but, more perhaps from a conviction of the innocence of the accused than, as was said, in com pliance with the entreaties of Cimon s sister Elpinice, lie did not press the charge, and Cimon was acquitted. Not long afterwards Pericles struck a blow at the conservative 5 Cp. Thucyd., i. 143, and ii. 63, 64 ; Plut., Per., 12. 6 Compare the story in Plutarch (De educ. pucr., 9), that on one occasion, though repeatedly called on by the people to speak, he declined to do so, saying that he was unprepared. 7 Plut., Per., 8. In the time of Cicero there were some writings bearing his name (Brutus, 7, 27 ; l>e Or., ii. 22, 93), but they were no doubt spurious. Cp. Quintilian, iii. 1, 12 ; xii. 2, 22 and 10, 49. 8 Cope (on Aristotle, Rhetoric, i. 7, 34) denies that Pericles was the author of the saying. His only plausible ground is that a similar saying is attributed to Gelon by Herodotus (vii. 162). But from the clumsy way in which the simile is there applied it has all the appear ance of being borrowed, and Herodotus, who long survived Pericles, may have borrowed it from him. It is more open to question whether the simile occurred in the funeral speech delivered at the close of the Samian War, or in that during the Peloponnesian War, but the former is more probable. In Thucydides s report of the latter speech the simile does not occur.