Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/194

 172 HISTORY OF GREECE. Aristophanes, all hearers and all enemies, speak of him like Olympian Zeus, hurling thunder and lightning, like Herakles and Achilles, as the only speaker on whose lips persuasion sat, and who left his sting in the minds of his audience : while Plato the pliilosopher, 1 who disapproved of his political working, and of the moral effects which he produced upon Athens, nevertheless extols his intellectual and oratorical ascendency : " his majestic intelligence," in language not less decisive than Thucydides. There is another point of eulogy, not less valuable, on which the testimony appears uncontradicted : throughout his long career, amidst the hottest political animosities, the conduct of Perikles towards opponents was always mild and liberal. 2 The conscious eelf-esteem and arrogance of manner with which the contempo- rary poet Ion reproached him, 3 contrasting it with the unpretend- ing simplicity of his own patron Kimon, though probably invidiously exaggerated, is doubtless in substance well founded, and those who read the last speech given above out of Thucy- dides, will at once recognize in it this attribute. His natural taste, his love of philosophical research, and his unwearied application to public affairs, all contributed to alienate him from ordinary familiarity, and to make him careless, perhaps improperly care- less, of the lesser means of conciliating public favor. But admitting this latter reproach to be well founded, as it seems to be, it helps to negative that greater and graver political crime which has been imputed to him, of sacrificing the perma- nent well-being and morality of the state to the maintenance of his own political power, of corrupting the people by distribu- tions of the public money. " He gave the reins to the people (in Plutarch's words 4 ), and shaped his administration for their 'Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 516; Phoedrus, c. 54, p. 270. Tlepf/c/.ea, rbv ov-'u fieyahoTrpETTur aobv uvtipa. Plato, Mens. p. 94, B. 4 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 11. Atd not TOTE fiuMara r dq/u.) ruf rjvj.aq uvels 6 LlepiK^f ETTOMTEVETO irpbf %u.piv UEL fiev riva -deav -nOiy/vpiKr/v f/ eoria- otv ij irofj.TTTjv slvai [IIJXOVUIJLEVO^ ev UGTEI, not diaTraidayuyuv OVK apoi-aon %6ovaif ryv irofav - - et-fjKOVTa de rpirjpEit; KO#' IKCKTTOI> Zviavrbv KTTfnrut',iv ale iro?J.ol T&V Tro'XiTuv iirl.Eov OKTU [irjvag fi/j.io$oi, /Lt?.TiJvTG upa nal pttP&ftvmrrtt TTJV VOVTIKJJV EjiirEtpiav. C-wpare c. 9, whee Plutarch states that Perikles, havi ig ro other raeauj
 * Plutarch, Perikles, c. 10-39. 3 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 5.