Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/187

 SKCONI) AND THIRD YEARS OF THE WAR. X(J3 lions of his character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness, which ranked first among his many eminent qualities, was never more imperiously required, and never more effectively manifested. In his capacity of strategus, or general, he convoked a formal assembly of the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publhly against the prevailing sentiment, and recom- mending perse 'erance in his line of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly very bitter, are not given by Thucy- dides ; but that of Perikles himself is set down at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. It strikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and the impress of actual circumstances, an impregnable mind, conscious not only of right purposes, but of just and reasonable anticipations, and bearing up with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural difficulty of the case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He had foreseen, 1 while advising the war oi'iginally, the probable impatience of his countrymen under its first hard- ships, but he could not foresee the epidemic by which that impa- tience had been exasperated into madness : and he now addressed them, not merely with unabated adherence to his own deliberate convictions, but also in a tone of reproachful remonstrance against their unmerited change of sentiment towards him, seeking at the same time to combat that uncontrolled despair which, for the moment, overlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself before the present sentiment, it is at this time that he sets forth his titles to their esteem in the most direct and unqualified manner, and claims the continuance of- that which they had so long accorded, as something belonging to him by acquired right. His main object, throughout this discourse, is to fill the minds of his audience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city, so as to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collective city flourishes, he argues, private misfortunes may &'; least be borne : but no amount cf private prosperity will avail, if the collective city falls ; a proposition literally true in ancient times, and under the circumstances of ancient warfare, though less true at present. " Distracted by domestic calamity, 1 Thucvd. i 140.