Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/557

 PEEICLES 531 party by attacking the Areopagus, a council composed of life-members who had worthily discharged the duties of archon. The nature of the functions of the Areopagus at this period is but little known ; it seems to have had a general supervision over the magistrates, the popular assembly, and the citizens, and to have exercised this supervision in an eminently conservative spirit. It sat also as a court for the trial of certain crimes, especially murder. Pericles seems to have deprived it of nearly all its functions, except its jurisdiction in cases of murder. 1 The poet ./Eschylus composed his Eumenides in vindica tion of the ancient privileges of the Areopagus. Though Pericles w^as the real author of the attack on the Areo pagus, the measure was nominally carried by Ephialtes. It was, indeed, part of Pericles s policy to keep in the background, and to act as far as possible through agents, reserving himself for great occasions. Ephialtes, a friend of Pericles, and a patriot of inflexible integrity, paid dearly for the distinction; he fell by the hand of an assassin employed by the oligarchical party, an event the more striking from the rarity of political assassinations in Greek history. The popular party seems to have immediately followed up its victory over the Areopagus by procuring the ostracism of Cimon, 2 which strengthened the hands of Pericles by removing his most influential opponent (461). Pericles took part in the battle of Tanagra (457) and bore himself with desperate bravery. After the battle Cimon was recalled from banishment, and it was Pericles who proposed and carried the decree for his recall. In 454 Pericles led an Athenian squadron from the port of Pegse on the Corinthian Gulf, landed at Sicyon, and defeated the inhabitants who ventured to oppose him ; then, taking with him a body of Achseans, he crossed to Acarnania, and besieged the town of (Eniadge, but had to return home without capturing it. Not long afterwards 3 Pericles con ducted a successful expedition to the Thracian Chersonese, where he not only strengthened the Greek cities by the addition of 1000 Athenian colonists, but also protected them against the incursions of the barbarians by fortifying the isthmus from sea to sea. This was only one of Pericles s many measures for extending and strengthening the naval empire of Athens. Colonies were established by him at various times in Naxos, Andros, Oreus in Eubcea (in 446), Brea in Macedonia (about 443), and ^Egina (in 431). They served the double purpose of establishing the Athenian power in distant parts and of relieving the pressure of population at Athens by providing the poorer citizens with lands. Somewhat different were the famous colonies established under Pericles s influence at Thurii in Italy, on the site of the ancient Sybaris (in 443), and at Amphipolis on the Strymon (in 437), for, though planted under the conduct of Athens, they were not exclusively Athenian colonies, other Greeks being allowed, and even invited, to take part in them. This was especially true of Thurii, which was in a manner a national Greek colony, and never stood in a relation of subjection to Athens. On one occasion (some time apparently between 454 and 449) 4 1 Cp. Philochorus, 141 b, in Miiller s Fragm. Hist. QTKC., vol. i. ; Plut., Per., 9, and dm., 15 ; Aristotle, Pol., 1274 a, 7 ; Thirlwall s Hist, of Greece, ii. pp. 458, 459. 2 The ostracism of Cimon lasted between four and five years (Theo- pompus, 92, in Fr. Hist. Gr. ; cp. Corn. Nep., Cimon, 3). Hence, if his recall took place shortly after the battle of Tanagra (Plut., dm., 17, and Per., 10), say at the beginning of 456, he must have been ostracized about the middle or latter part of 461. Diodorus (xi. 77) places the attack on the Areopagus in 460 ; but, if that attack preceded (as Plutarch implies) the banishment of Cimon, i-t would be necessary, in order to harmonize Diodorus and Theopompus, to place the recall of Cimon in 455 or 454 i.e., between one and two years after the battle of Tanagra and this seems forbidden by Plutarch s narrative. 3 In 453, according to Diod., xi. 88. 4 The expedition is only recorded by Plutarch (Per., 20), and is Pericles sailed at the head of a splendid armament to the Black Sea, where he helped and encouraged the Greek cities and overawed the barbarians. At Sinope he left a force of ships and men under the gallant Lamachus, to co-operate with the inhabitants against the tyrant Tirnesi- leus, and on the expulsion of the tyrant and his party he carried a decree for the despatch of 600 Athenian colonists to Sinope, to occupy the lands vacated by the exiles. But, with the sober wisdom which characterized him, Pericles never allowed his plans to exceed the bounds of the pos sible ; he was no political dreamer like Alcibiades, to be dazzled with the vision of a universal Athenian empire in Greece, Italy, and Africa, such as floated before the minds of many in that and the following generations. 5 The disastrous expedition which the Athenians sent to Egypt, to support the rebel Inarus against Persia (460-455), received no countenance from Pericles. When Cimon died in 449 the aristocratical party sought to counterbalance the power of Pericles by putting forward Thucydides, son of Melesias, as the new 7 head of the party. He seems to have been an honest patriot, but, as the event proved, he was no match for Pericles. The Sacred War in 448 showed once more that Pericles knew how to defend the interests of Athens. The Phocians, under the protec tion of Athens, had wrested the control of the Delphic oracle from their enemies the Delphians. The latter were friendly to Sparta, and accordingly the Spartans marched into Phocis and restored the oracle to the Delphians. When they had departed, Pericles, at the head of an Athenian force, placed the oracle once more in the hands of the Phocians. As the seat of the great oracle, Delphi was to ancient Greece much what Rome was to mediaeval Europe, and the friendship of the god, or of his priests, was no small political advantage. When the Athenians despatched a small force under Tolmides to crush a rising in Bceotia, they did so in spite of the warnings of Pericles. These warnings were soon justified by the unfortunate battle of Coronea (447), which deprived Athens at a blow of the continental dominion she had acquired a few years before by the battle of CEnophyta (456). The island of Eubcea now r revolted from Athens, and hardly had Pericles crossed over with an army to reduce it when word came that the Megarians had massacred the Athenian garrison, and, in league with Corinth, Sicyon, and Epidaurus, were up in arms, while a Peloponnesian army under King Plistoanax was on the point of invading Attica. Pericles recrossed in haste to Attica. The Peloponnesians returned home, having advanced no farther than Eleusis and Thria. It was said that Pericles had bribed Cleandridas ; certain it is that both Cleandridas and Plistoanax were charged at Sparta with having misconducted the expedition and were found guilty. Having saved Attica, Pericles returned to Eubcea, reduced it to subjection, expelled the Histireans, and settled the Athenian colony of Oreus (446) on their lands. The thirty years peace, concluded soon afterwards (445) with Sparta, was probably in large measure the work of Pericles. The Athenians had evacuated Boeotia immediately after the battle of Coronea, and by the terms of the peace they now renounced their other continental possessions, Acha-a, Troezen, Niscea, and Pegae. The peace left Pericles at liberty to develop his schemes for promoting the internal welfare of Athens, and for making it the centre of the intellectual and artistic life of Greece. But first he had to settle accounts with his political rival Thucydides ; the struggle was soon decided by the ostracism of the latter in 444. Thenceforward to the end of his life Pericles mentioned by him immediately after the expedition against CEuiadaa (454) and before the Sacred War (449). 6 Thucyd. , vi. 15, 90 ; Diod., xii. 54 ; Plut., Per., 20, and Alcib., 17 ; Pausau., i. 11, 7.