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I.] and fired all hearts with a common patriotism. And for the first decade, at least, men were content to let internal politics alone, and pursue the foreign policy of which Kimon was the most eminent instrument. It was in fact a democracy still managed by aristocrats, in whom the people saw their natural leaders, and whose social prestige ensured them the suffrages of the lower classes.

But before the poet was come to years of discretion, Pericles had inaugurated a new internal policy, in opposition to Kimon. He was no less an aristocrat; nay, he was the lineal descendant of the old tyrants, who had educated Athens in letters, while they retarded her political development. But, like the old Whig nobility of England, he led the Liberal party against the Tories under Kimon. Hence came constitutional conflicts of great bitterness, terminating in the victory of the popular party and the administration of Pericles. The old aristocratic party, however, remained still a considerable power—an opposition not always constitutional, and always a danger to the Athenian demos, until the Revolution of 411 and the Tyranny of the Thirty forced all its leaders into plain treason towards the State. Then the restored democracy so secured itself that we hear of its opponents as a party no more. But in Pericles' earlier days, we must conceive the Athenians as well versed in constitutional discussions, as perpetually debating the limits and value of an aristocracy, the sovereign rights of the people, the responsibility of magistrates; while no less important questions of foreign policy, of the rights of subjects, of the administration of finance, were brought before the mind of every citizen.

3. Thus the political education which is obtained by the public discussion of constitutional questions, and by that alone, was certainly one of the leading attributes of Athenian society as Euripides grew up. We endeavour nowadays to attain this diffusion of political sense by a public press; but I need hardly remind anyone who has even once joined in a formal