Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/386

 362 HISTORY OF GREECE. feud with Athens, and Corinth in a temper more hostile than friendly, the good feeling of the Lacedaemonians might "well ap- pear to Athenian citizens eminently desirable to preserve : and the philo-Laconian character of the leading men at Athens contributed to disarm the jealousy of Sparta during that crit- ical period while the Athenian maritime ascendency was in progress.' The political opposition between Perikles and Kimon was hereditary, since Xanthippus, the father of the former, had been the accuser of Miltiades, the father of the latter. Both were of the tirst families in the city, and this, combined with the military talents of Kimon, and the great statesmanlike superiority of Perikles, placed both the one and the other at the head of the two political parties which divided Athens. Perikles must have begun his poUtical career very young, since he maintained a posi- tion first of great influence, and afterwards of unparalleled moral and political ascendency, for the long period of forty years, against distinguished rivals, bitter assailants, and unscrupulous libellers (about 467-428 B.C.) His public life began about the time when Themistokles was ostracized, and when Aristeides was passing otf the stage, and he soon displayed a character which combined the pecuniary probity of the one with the re- source and large views of the other ; superadding to both a discretion and mastery of temper never disturbed, — an excellent musical and lettered education received from Pythokleides, — an eloquence such as no one before had either heard or conceived, — and the best philosophy which the age afforded. His militaiy duties as a youthful citizen were faithfully and strenuously per- formed, but he was timid in his first political approaches to the people, — a fact perfectly in unison with the caution of his tem- perament, but which some of his biographers^ explained by saying that he was afraid of being ostracized, and that his coun- tenance resembled that of the despot Peisistratus. We may be pretty sure, however, that this personal resemblance, like the wonderful dream ascribed to his mother^ when pregnant of him, was an after-thought of enemies, when his ascendency was already
 * Plutarch, Kimon, c. 16; Themistokles, c. 20.
 * Plutai-ch, Perikles, c. 4-7, se</. ^ Herodot •<•• ''"I,