The Good Book (96 page)

18. That Cimon should go out to sea with a fleet of two hundred ships, and be commander-in-chief abroad,

19. With a design to reduce the King of Persia’s territories, and that Pericles should have the power at home.

20. This Elpinice, it was thought, had before this time procured some favour for her brother Cimon at Pericles’ hands,

21. And induced him to be more remiss and gentle in urging the charge when Cimon was tried for his life;

22. For Pericles was one of the committee appointed by the commons to plead against him.

23. And when Elpinice came and spoke with him on her brother’s behalf, he answered, with a smile,

24. ‘O Elpinice, you are too old a woman to undertake such business as this.’

25. But, when he appeared to impeach him, he stood up only once to speak, merely to acquit himself of his commission, and went out of court,

26. Having done Cimon the least prejudice of any of his accusers.

27. How, then, can one believe Idomeneus, who charges Pericles as if he had by treachery procured the murder of Ephialtes, the popular statesman,

28. One who was his friend, and of his own party in all his political course, out of jealousy, and envy of his great reputation?

29. This historian, having raked up these stories, I know not where, has libelled with them a man who, although not altogether free from fault or blame,

30. Yet had a noble heart, and a mind bent on honour; and where such qualities are, there can be no cruel and brutal passions.

31. The truth of what happened to Ephialtes, as Aristotle has told us, is this:

32. That having made himself formidable to the oligarchical party by being an uncompromising asserter of the people’s rights in calling to account and prosecuting those who in any way wronged them,

33. He was assassinated by Aristodicus the Tanagraean on behalf of his enemies.

Chapter 33

  1. Cimon, while he was admiral, died in Cyprus. And the aristocratical party, seeing that Pericles was already the greatest and foremost man in the city,

  2. But nevertheless wishing to set somebody up against him to blunt the edge of his power to prevent it turning into a monarchy,

  3. Put forward Thucydides of Alopece, a discreet person and a near kinsman of Cimon’s, to conduct the opposition against him;

  4. Who, indeed, though less skilled in warlike affairs than Cimon,

  5. Was better versed in speaking and political business, and keeping close guard in the city.

  6. By engaging with Pericles on the hustings, in a short time he brought the government to an equality of parties.

  7. For he would not allow those who were called the ‘honest and good’ (that is, persons of worth and distinction) to be scattered among the populace,

  8. As formerly, diminishing and obscuring their superiority amongst the masses;

  9. But taking them apart by themselves and uniting them in one body, by their combined weight he was able to make a counterpoise to the other party.

10. For, indeed, there was from the beginning a concealed split between the different popular and aristocratical tendencies;

11. But the open rivalry and contention of these two opponents made the gash deep,

12. And severed the city into the two parties of ‘the people’ and ‘the few’.

13. And so Pericles, at that time, more than at any other, gave the reins to the people, and made his policy serve their interest,

14. Contriving continually to have some great public show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession or other in the town to please them,

15. Coaxing his countrymen like children with such delights and pleasures as were not, however, unedifying.

16. Besides that, every year he sent out sixty galleys, on board which there were numbers of citizens, who were paid for eight months to learn and practise the art of seamanship.

17. He sent a thousand citizens into the Chersonese as planters, to share the land among them by lot,

18. And five hundred more into the isle of Naxos, and half that number to Andros,

19. A thousand into Thrace to dwell among the Bisaltae, and others into Italy, when the city Sybaris, which now was called Thurii, was to be repeopled.

20. And this he did to ease and discharge the city of an idle, and, by reason of their idleness, a meddling crowd of people;

21. And at the same time to meet the necessities and restore the fortunes of the poor townsmen,

22. And to intimidate, also, and check their allies from attempting any change, by posting such garrisons, as it were, in the midst of them.

Chapter 34

  1. What gave most pleasure and ornament to Athens, and the greatest admiration and even astonishment to all strangers,

  2. And that which now is Greece’s only evidence that the power she boasts of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle story,

  3. Was Pericles’ construction of the great public buildings.

  4. Yet these were the actions in government that his enemies most looked askance at, and cavilled at in the popular assemblies,

  5. Crying out that the commonwealth of Athens had lost its reputation and was denigrated abroad for removing the common treasure of the Greeks from the isle of Delos into their own custody;

  6. And though their excuse for doing so was to protect it from capture by the barbarians, Pericles had now spent it;

  7. And they complained that ‘Greece cannot but resent it as an insufferable affront, and consider herself to be tyrannised over openly,

  8. ‘When she sees the treasure, which was contributed by her upon a necessity for the war, wantonly lavished out by us upon our city,

  9. ‘To gild her all over, and to adorn and set her forth, as it were some vain woman, hung round with precious stones and statues, which cost a world of money.’

10. But Pericles informed the people that they were in no way obliged to give any account of those moneys to their allies,

11. So long as they maintained their defence, and kept off the barbarians from attacking them;

12. While in the meantime they did not so much as supply one horse or man or ship, but only found money for the service;

13. ‘Which money,’ he said, ‘is not theirs that gave it, but theirs that received it,

14. ‘So long as they perform the conditions on which they received it.’

15. And that it was good reason, that, now the city was sufficiently provided and stored with all things necessary for the war,

16. They should convert the overplus of its wealth to such undertakings as would hereafter, when completed, give them eternal honour,

17. And, for the present, while in process, freely supply all the inhabitants with plenty.

18. With their variety of workmanship and of occasions for service, which summon all arts and trades and require all hands to be employed about them,

19. They put the whole city, in a manner, into state-pay; while at the same time she is both beautiful and maintained by herself.

20. For as those who are of age and strength for war are provided for and maintained in the armaments abroad by their pay out of the public stock,

21. So, it being Pericles’ desire and design that the undisciplined multitude that stayed at home should not go without their share of public salaries, and yet should not have them for sitting still and doing nothing,

22. To that end he thought fit to bring in among them, with the approbation of the people, these projects of buildings and designs of work,

23. That would be of some continuance before they were finished, and would give employment to numerous arts,

24. So that the part of the people that stayed at home might, no less than those that were at sea or in garrisons or on expeditions,

25. Have a fair and just occasion of receiving the benefit and having their share of the public moneys.

26. The materials were stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony and cypresswood;

27. And the arts or trades that wrought and fashioned them were smiths and carpenters, moulders,

28. Founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers and turners;

29. And those who conveyed them to the town for use included merchants, mariners and ship-masters by sea,

30. And by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoemakers, leather-dressers, road-makers, miners.

31. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and labourers belonging to it banded together as in array, to be the instrument and body for the performance of the service.

32. Thus, to say all in a word, the occasions and services of these public works distributed plenty through every age and condition.

Chapter 35

  1. As the public works rose up, no less stately in size than exquisite in form,

  2. The workmen striving to outvie the material and the design with the beauty of their workmanship,

  3. Yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of their execution.

  4. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have required, they thought, several successions and ages of men for their completion,

  5. Were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man’s political service.

  6. Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus the painter boast of dispatching his work with speed and ease, replied, ‘I take a long time.’

  7. For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty;

  8. The expenditure of time allowed to a man’s pains beforehand for the production of a thing is repaid by the preservation when once completed.

  9. For which reason Pericles’ works are especially admired, as having been made quickly, yet having lasted so long.

10. For every piece of his work was immediately antique, even at that time, for its beauty and elegance;

11. And yet in its vigour and freshness looks to this day as if it were just executed.

12. There is a sort of bloom of newness upon those works of his, preserving them from the touch of time,

13. As if they had some perennial essence and undying vitality mingled in the composition of them.

14. Phidias was in charge of all the works as surveyor-general, though upon the various parts other great masters and workmen were employed.

15. Callicrates and Ictinus built the Parthenon;

16. The hall at Eleusis, where the festivals were celebrated, was begun by Coroebus, who erected the pillars that stand upon the floor or pavement, and joined them to the architraves;

17. And after his death Metagenes of Xypete added the frieze and the upper line of columns;

18. Xenocles of Cholargus roofed or arched the lantern on top of the monument to Castor and Pollux;

19. And the long wall, which Socrates says he himself heard Pericles propose to the people, was undertaken by Callicrates.

20. The Odeum, or music room, which in its interior was full of seats and ranges of pillars,

21. And outside had its roof made to slope and descend from one single point at the top,

22. Was constructed in imitation of the King of Persia’s Pavilion; this likewise by Pericles’ order;

23. Which Cratinus in his comedy called
The Thracian Women
made an occasion of raillery:

24. ‘So, we see here, long-pate Pericles appear, since ostracism time, he’s laid aside his head, and wears the new Odeum in its stead.’

25. Pericles, also eager for distinction, then first obtained the decree for a contest in musical skill to be held yearly at the Panathenaea,

26. And he himself, being chosen judge, arranged the order and method in which the competitors should sing and play on the flute and on the harp.

27. And both at that time, and at other times also, they sat in this music room to see and hear all such trials of skill.

28. The propylaea, or entrances to the Acropolis, were finished in five years, Mnesicles being the principal architect.

29. Phidias had the whole work under his charge, along with the oversight over all the artists and workmen, through Pericles’ friendship for him;

30. And this, indeed, made him much envied, and his patron shamefully slandered with stories,

31. As if Phidias were in the habit of receiving, for Pericles’ use, freeborn women that came to see the works.

32. The comic writers of the town, when they got hold of this story, made much of it, and bespattered him with all the ribaldry they could invent,

33. Charging him falsely with the wife of Menippus, one who was his friend and served as lieutenant under him in the wars;

34. And with the birds kept by Pyrilampes, an acquaintance of Pericles, who, they pretended, used to give presents of peacocks to Pericles’ female friends.