Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/167

Rh been Cimon's rival. Pericles was in character and tastes the reverse of a demagogue, for he maintained a somewhat haughty reserve, mingled little in general society, and only spoke in the assembly on important occasions. Yet his eloquence was so persuasive that for many years it made him almost autocratic. The constitutional changes that can be with certainty attributed to him are not numerous or striking. Yet they are all in the direction of more complete democracy. He is said to have been the first to propose a small payment for those who sat as jurors in law courts, thus making it possible for all classes to give their time to this duty. In conjunction with Ephialtes, the most advanced demagogue of the time, he assisted in reducing the power of the Areopagus to that of a court of law for trying certain cases of homicide. The council of the Areopagus consisted of ex-archons. They were members for life, and the council had by a kind of prescription exercised a certain superintendence over magistrates and people. We do not know exactly how far it was able to withstand votes passed by the assembly, or to oppose acts of magistrates, but it certainly possessed some powers which were held to be inconsistent with pure democracy; and of these Ephialtes and Pericles deprived it. He also established the theoric fund, from which the entrance fee to the theatre was to be paid for such citizens as applied for it, and the enjoyment of the festivals generally to be made free to all.

But the chief interest attaching to him in the story of the Greeks is connected with the two objects