Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/204

180 of the sources from which that surplus wealth was drawn, which was spent on the intellectual and æsthetic education of the Athenian people: let us return to it now. That wealth, supplying the means of paying the citizens for attendance in the law-courts, and later in the Ecclesia, of providing them with constant recreation in the theatre and at the festivals, and of adorning the city with splendid temples and other public buildings, was drawn, in part, indeed, from the ordinary resources of the State, but chiefly from contributions coming from the cities subject to Athens; contributions not voluntary in amount, but carefully assessed by Athens herself, and as rigidly exacted by her.

It was Pericles himself who introduced this policy — a policy which met with strong opposition even in the Athenian assembly, and was one of the chief factors in rousing against Athens the bitter animosity of the majority of Greek States. It is of the greatest importance for us, for it marks an epoch in the history of the City-State. It was an essential characteristic of that form of State, as I have already pointed out, that it should be independent, and as far as possible self-sufficing. All that I have been saying in this chapter about the realisation of "the good life" at Athens is so far proof of this, that if Athens had been the subject of another State she could not have lived her keen political life, or have called into play the gifts of