Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/124

 102 HISTORY OF GREECE. the di.ias;ery : in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against her : one thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was, the reception of free women to facilitate the in- trigues of Perikles. lie defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal : but we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the strongest personal emotions, and even by tears. 1 The dikasts were accustomed to such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to extravagant excess, from ordinary accused persons: but in Perikles, so manifest an outburst of emotion stands out as something quite unparalleled : for constant self-mastery was one of the most prominent features in his char- acter. 2 And we shall find him near the close of his political life, when he had become for the moment unpopular with the Athenian people, distracted as they were at the moment with the terrible sufferings of the pestilence, bearing up against their unmerited anger not merely with dignity, but with a pride of conscious innocence and desert which rises almost into defiance ; insomuch that the rhetor Dionysius, who criticizes the speech of Perikles as if it were simply the composition of Thucydides, censures that historian for having violated dramatic propriety by a display of insolence where humility would have been be- coming. 3 It appears, also, as far as we can judge amidst very imperfect data, that the trial of the great sculptor Pheidias, for alleged embezzlement in the contract for his celebrated gold and ivory statue of Athene, 4 took place nearly at this period. That statue had been finished and dedicated in the Parthenon in 437 B.C., since which period Pheidias had been engaged at Olympia, in his last and great masterpiece, the colossal statue of the Olym- mcnt and uncertainties upon many points: compare Plutarch, Perikles, c. 16-32; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23 ; Diogen. Lae'rt. ii, 12, 13. See also Schau- bach, Fragment. Anaxagorse, pp. 47-52. 1 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 32. * Plutarch, Perikles, c. 7, 36-39. 3 Thucyd. ii, 60, 61 : compare also his striking expressions, c. 65; Dionjs Halikarn. De Thucydid. Judic. c. 44, p. 924. 4 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 31. Qeidiai; kpyohaft^ rov uyu?./iarof. This tale, about protecting Pheidias under the charge of embezzlement, iras the Btory most widely in circulation against Perikles r] xeipiarri alria KaaCv, I vaa 6s irfaia-ove puprvpaf (Plutarch, Perikles, c. 31).