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 dates from Phoenicia, ores from Cyprus, silphium from Cyrene; Thrace sent timber; Sicily and the Aegean islands sent their fruits, wines, and other luxuries. Athens itself had a special repute for earthenware, for some kinds of metal work, and for work in leather. It is not surprising, then, that Athens began to suffer from an inconvenience which at the present day is felt on a greater scale in the United States,—viz. the influx of aliens, anxious to share in the advantages of citizenship. Pericles checked this evil by reviving the old rule, which had long fallen into disuse, viz. that full citizenship could be enjoyed only by a person, both of whose parents were of Attic birth. A re-enforcement of this rule, though unpopular at first, was made comparatively easy by the favourable conditions granted to aliens who wished to fix their abode at Athens.

Thus far we have been considering Periclean Athens chiefly as the most perfect example of Greek civic life; as an imperial city, in which the fullest individual freedom was enjoyed without prejudice to the strength of the State; as a great seat of industry and a focus of commerce. The memorials of all these things have well-nigh vanished; but the modern world still possesses monuments of the literature, and at least fragments of the art, which proclaim Athens to have been, above all, the great intellectual centre of that age. The influence of Periclean Athens is deeply impressed on the History of Herodotus, and moulded the still greater work of Thucydides; Athens was the home of the