Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/127

 BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. ir-i All that we can make out, amidst these uncertified allegations, is, that in the year or two immediately preceding the Peloponne- sian war, Perikles was hard pressed by the accusations of political enemies, perhaps even in his own person, but certainly in the persons of those who were most in his confidence and affection. 1 And it was in this turn of his political position that the Lacedae- monians sent to Athens the above-mentioned requisition, that the ancient Kylonian sacrilege might be at length cleared out ; in other words, that Perikles and his family might be banished. Doubtless, his enemies, as well as the partisans of Lacedaemon at Athens, would strenuously support this proposition : and the party of Lacedaemon at Athens was always strong, even during the middle of the war : to act as proxenus to the Lacedaemonians was accounted an honor even by the greatest Athenian families. 2 On this occasion, however, the manoeuvre did not succeed, nor did the Athenians listen to the requisition for banishing the sacri- legious Alkmaeonids. On the contrary, they replied that the Spartans, too, had an account of sacrilege to clear off; for they had violated the sanctuary of Poseidon, at Cape Tasnarus, in dragging from it some helot suppliants to be put to death, and the sanctuary of Athene Chalkicekus at Sparta, in blocking up and starving to death the guilty regent Pausanias. To require that Laconia might be cleared of these two acts of sacrilege, was the only answer which the Athenians made to the demand sent for the banishment of Perikles. 3 Probably, the actual effect of that demand was, to strengthen him in the public esteem : 4 very different from the effect of the same manoeuvre when practised before by Kleomenes against Kleisthenes. 1 It would appear that not only Aspasia and Anaxagoras, but also the musician and philosopher Damon, the personal friend and instructor of Perikles, must have been banished at a time when Perikles was old, per- haps somewhere near about this time. The passage in Plato, Alkibiades, i, c. 30, p. 118, proves that Damon was in Athens, and intimate with Peri- klcs, when the latter was of considerable age xal vvv ere rr}%iicov70i uv bapuvt avveariv CLVTOV TOVTOV Zveica. Damon is said to have been ostracized, perhaps he was tried and txm demned to banishment: for the two are sometimes confounded. 1 See Thucyd. v, 43 ; vi, 89. 3 Thucyd. i, 128, 135. 139. 4 Plutarch, Porikl. c. 33 5*