Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/303

281 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GRFECE. 281 Athenians saw in him, when he spoke to the people from the bema, an Olympian Zens, who had the thunder and lightning in his power. It was not the volubility of his eloquence, but the irresistible force of his arguments, and the majesty of his whole appearance, which gained him this appellation: hence a comic poet said of him, that he was the only one of the orators who left his sting in the minds of his hearers*. The objects to which Pericles directed the people, and for which he accumulated so much power and wealth at Athens, may be best seen in the still extant works of architecture and sculpture which originated under his administration. The defence of the state being already pro- vided for, through the instrumentality of Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles himself, by the fortifications of the city and harbour and the long walls, Pericles induced the Athenian people to expend upon the decoration of Athens, by works of architecture and sculpture, a larger part of its ample revenues than was ever applied to this purpose in any other state, either republican or monarchicalf. This outlay of public money, which at any other period would have been excessive, was then well-timed ; since the art of sculpture had just reached a pitch of high excellence, after long and toilsome efforts, and persons endowed with its magical powers, such as Phidias, were in close intimacy with Pericles. Of the surpassing skill with which Pericles collected into one focus the rays of aitistieal genius at Athens, no stronger proof can be afforded, than the fact that no subsequent period, through the patronage either of Macedonian or Roman princes, produced works of equal excel- lence. Indeed, it may be said that the creations of the age of Pericles are the only works of art which completely satisfy the most refined and cultivated taste. But it cannot have been the intention of Pericles, or of the Athenians who shared his views, to limit their countrymen to those enjoyments of art which are derived from the eye. It is known that Pericles was on terms of intimacy with Sophocles ; and it may be presumed that Pericles thoroughly appreciated such works as the An- tigone of Sophocles ; since (as we shall show hereafter) there was a close analogy between the political principles of Pericles and the poetical character of Sophocles. Pericles, however, lived on a still more intimate footing with Anaxagoras, the first philosopher who proclaimed f The animal revenue of Athens at the time of Pericles is estimated at 1000 talents (rather more than 200,000/.) ; of which sum GOO talents flowed from the tri- butes of the allies. If we reckon that the Propylsea (with the buildings belonging to it) cost '2012 talents, the expense of all the buildings of this time, — the Odeon, the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the temple at Kletisis, and other contemporary temples in the country, as at Khamnus and Sunium, together with the sculpture and colouring, statues of e;old and ivory, as the I'allas in the Parthenon, carpets, &c., — cannot have been less than 8000 talents. And yet all these woiks fell in the last twenty years of the lVloponnesian war.
 * Ma'voj ruiv pr,rogeuv To xivrgov iyxarii.ui't ro7; ux/>o/vf/,ivoi;. Eupolis in the Demi.