Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/125

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR 103 pian Zeus. On his return to Athens from the execution of this work, about 433 or 432 B c., the accusation of embezzlement was instituted against him by the political enemies of Perikles. 1 A slave of Pheidias, named Menon, planted himself as a suppliant at the altar, professing to be cognizant of certain facts which proved that his master had committed peculation. Motion was made to receive his depositions, and to insure to his person the protection of the people ; upon which he revealed various state ments impeaching the pecuniary probity of Pheidias, and the latter was put in prison, awaiting the day for his trial before the dikastery. The gold employed and charged for in the statue, however, was all capable of being taken off and weighed, so as to verify its accuracy, which Perikles dared the accusers to do. Besides the charge of embezzlement, there were other circum- stances which rendered Pheidias unpopular : it had been discov- ered that, in the reliefs on the friese of the Parthenon, he had introduced the portraits both of himself and of Perikles in conspic- uous positions. It seems that Pheidias died in prison before the day of trial ; and some even said, that he had been poisoned by the enemies of Perikles, in order that the suspicions against the latter, who was the real object of attack, might be aggravated. It is said also that Drakontides proposed and carried a decree in the public assembly, that Perikles should be called on to give an account of the money which he had expended, and that the di- kasts, before whom the account was rendered, should give their suffrage in the most solemn manner from the altar : this latter provision was modified by Agnon, who, while proposing that the dikasts should be fifteen hundred in number, retained the vote by pebbles in the urn according to ordinary custom. 2 If Perikles was ever tried on such a charge, there can be no doubt that he was honorably acquitted: for the language of Thucydides respecting his pecuniary probity is such as could never have been employed if a verdict of guilty on a charge of peculation had ever been publicly pronounced. But we cannot be certain that he ever was tried : indeed, another accusation 1 See the Dissertation of O. Miillcr (De Phidias VitS, c. 17, p. 35), who lays out the facts in the order in which I have given them. ' Plutarch, Perikles, c. 13-32.