of the Greek nature; the Greek poet, or historian, or philosopher, was not merely a man of letters in the narrower modern meaning of the term; he was first, and before all things, a citizen, in close sympathy, usually in active contact, with the public life of the city. For a Greek, therefore, as poet or historian or philosopher, nothing could be more directly important than that this public life should be as noble as possible; since, the nobler it was, the higher and the more invigorating was the source from which he drew his inspiration. Among the great literary men who belonged to the age of Pericles, there are especially two who may be regarded as representative of it,—its chief historian and its most characteristic poet,—Thucydides and Sophocles. The mind of Thucydides had been moulded by the ideas of Pericles, and probably in large measure by personal intercourse with him. We recognise the Periclean stamp in the clearness with which Thucydides perceives that the vital thing for a State is the spirit in which it is governed; and that, apart from this spirit, there is no certain efficacy in the form of a constitution, no sovereign spell in the name. In Sophocles, again, we feel the Periclean influence working with the same general tendency as in the plastic arts; he holds with the ancient traditions of piety, but invests them with a more spiritual and more intellectual meaning. With regard to the fine arts, it was the resolve of Pericles that they should find their supreme and concentrated manifestation in the embellishment of Athens.
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