Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/41

Rh a visible grandeur, which made her appear even much stronger than she really was, — and which had the farther effect of softening to the minds of the subjects the humiliating sense of obedience; while it served as a normal school, open to strangers from all quarters, of energetic action even under full license of criticism, — of elegant pursuits economically followed, — and of a love for knowledge without enervation of character. Such were the views of Perikles in regard to his country, during the years which preceded the Peloponnesian war, as we find them recorded in his celebrated Funeral Oration, pronounced in the first year of that war, — an exposition forever memorable of the sentiment and purpose of Athenian democracy, as conceived by its ablest president.

So bitter, however, was the opposition made by Thucydides and his party to this projected expenditure, — so violent and pointed did the scission of aristocrats and democrats become, — that the dispute came after no long time to that ultimate appeal which the Athenian constitution provided for the case of two opposite and nearly equal party-leaders, — a vote of ostracism. Of the particular details which preceded this ostracism, we are not informed; but we see clearly that the general position war such as the ostracism was intended to meet. Probably the vote was proposed by the party of Thucydides, in order to procure the banishment of Perikles, the more powerful person of the two, and the most likely to excite popular jealousy. The challenge was accepted by Perikles and his friends, and the result of the voting was such that an adequate legal majority condemned Thucydides to ostracism. And it seems that the majority must have been very decisive, for the party of Thucydides was completely broken by it: and we hear of no other single individual equally formidable as a leader of opposition, throughout all the remaining life of Perikles.