Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/304

282 282 HISTORY OF THE in Greece the doctrine of a regulating intelligence*. The house of Pericles, particularly from the time when the beautiful and accom- plished Milesian Aspasia presided over it with a greater freedom of in- tercourse than Athenian usage allowed to wives, was a point of union for all the men who had conceived the intellectual superiority of Athens. The sentiment attributed by Thucydides to Pericles in the celebrated funeral oration, that " Athens is the school of Greece," is doubtless, if not in words, at least in substance, the genuine expression of Periclesf. § 6. It could not be expected that this brilliant exhibition of human excellence should be without its dark side, or that the flourishing state of Athenian civilization should be exempt from the elements of decay. The political position of Athens soon led to a conflict between the patri- otism and moderation of her citizens and their interests and passions. From the earliest times, Athens had stood in an unfriendly relation to the rest of Greece. Even the lonians, who dwelt in Asia Minor, sur- rounded by Dorians and iEolians, did not, until their revolt from Persia, receive from the Athenians the sympathy common among the Greeks between members of the same race. Nor did the other states of the mother country ever so far recognise the intellectual supremacy of Athens, as to submit to her in political alliances; and therefore Athens never exercised such an ascendency over the independent states of Greece as was at various times conceded to Sparta. At the very foundation of her political greatness, Athens could not avoid struggling to free herself from the superintendence of the other Greeks ; and since Attica was not an island, — which would have best suited the views of the Athenian statesmen, — Athens was, by means of immense fortifica- tions, as far as possible isolated from the land and withdrawn from the influence of the dominant military powers. The eyes of her statesmen were exclusively turned towards the sea. They thought that the national character of the lonians of Attica, the situation of this peninsula, and its internal resources, especially its silver mines, fitted Athens for mari- time sovereignty. Moreover, the Persian war had given her a powerful impulse in this direction ; and by her large navy she stood at the head of the confederate islanders and Asiatics, who wished to continue the war against Persia for their own liberation and security. These confe- derates had before been the subjects of the King of Persia; and had long been more accustomed to slavish obedience than to voluntary exertion. It was their refusals and delays, which first induced Athens to draw the reins tighter, and to assume a supremacy over them. The the philosophical musicians, Pythocleides and Damon, with Anaxagoras, as friends of Pericles. Pericles is also said to have been connected with Zeno the E'.eatic and Protagoras the sophist. f Thucyd, II. 41. ^mikkiv ti Xiyca thv ■zravu.v ■zokn T«5 'EXXci^o; zoc'thiuait utai.
 * The author of the first Alcibiades (among the Platonic dialogues). p. 1 18, unites