Page:The Children's Plutarch, Greeks.djvu/61

 voice behind still bawled. Pericles called to one of his servants:

"Bring a lighted torch," he said, 'and show this person the way home."

That was all the reply that Pericles gave to the rude Athenian. You see, he was a man of self-command, he did not break into a fury when he was insulted. This was not because he was weak or timid. When Athens was at war, Pericles joined the army, or sailed with the fleet.

He was a great favorite with the people; and you will not wonder at it when I tell you what he did for them. Any poor Athenian was allowed money to pay for admission to the open-air theatre. Soldiers were paid wages; and every year sixty galleys cruised about the sea for eight months, and the men who were trained in these ships as sailors were paid all the time. Corn was sold to poor persons very cheap. And parties of two hundred and fifty, and even one thousand, persons were sent across the water to settle in foreign cities where they would still be protected by the power of Athens. And if you had walked about the city in the days of Pericles, you would have seen large numbers of men at work building walls, archways, and temples, and using vast loads of stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony-wood, cypress-wood, and so on. You would have seen carpenters, masons, braziers (or brass-workers), goldsmiths, painters,