Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/200

176 the Athenians were jealous of those whose talents raised them above the crowd. In some famous instances, indeed, they laid a heavy hand upon their great men; they fined Pericles, they punished Pheidias, they drove out Anaxagoras, they put Socrates to death. But they were never angry with their men of genius because they were men of genius; they merely declined to place absolute confidence in them as men who could do no wrong. And, after all, it was a plague-stricken and hard-pressed Athens that dealt unjustly with Pericles, and an Athens conquered and ruined that gave Socrates the hemlock. For years they had let Pericles, not indeed rule them, but lead them, and it was no more than the consciousness of a weak point in the Greek character that persuaded them that he or Pheidias could be guilty of peculation. For years they let Socrates go about the city teaching strange doctrines, — doctrines that were inconsistent even with the high level of the of the average Athenian mind. In spite of these mistakes, one of which at least has left a stain for ever on their glorious record, the proposition holds good that here "the good life" was realised more fully than in any other City-State, and the interests of the State and the individual more completely identified in the endeavour to attain it.

I said some way back that I should have a word to say about the weak points in this wonderful political creation of the Athenians. Drawbacks