PERICLES. By ERNST CURTIUS.

[A distinguished statesman, who built up and consolidated the power of Athens immediately after the Persian wars, born 495 B.C., died 429. His career was contemporaneous with the highest glory of Athens in art, arms, literature, and oratory. As an orator Pericles was second only to Demosthenes, as a statesman second to none. References: Grote’s “History of Greece,” Curtius’s “History of Greece,” Plutarch’s “Lives,” Bulwer’s “Athens.”]

Aspasia came to Athens when everything new and extraordinary, everything which appeared to be an enlargement of ancient usage, a step forward and a new acquisition, was joyously welcomed. Nor was it long before it was recognized that she enchanted the souls of men by no mere arts of deception of which she had learned the trick. Hers was a lofty and richly endowed nature with a perfect sense of all that is beautiful, and hers a harmonious and felicitous development. For the first time the treasures of Hellenic culture were found in the possession of a woman surrounded by the graces of her womanhood—a phenomenon which all men looked on with eyes of wonder. She was able to converse with irresistible grace on politics, philosophy, and art, so that the most serious Athenians—even such men as Socrates—sought her out in order to listen to her conversation.

But her real importance for Athens began on the day when she made the acquaintance of Pericles, and formed with him a connection of mutual love. It was a real marriage, which only lacked the civil sanction because she was a foreigner; it was an alliance of the truest and tenderest affection which death alone dissolved—the endless source of a domestic felicity which no man needed more than the statesman, who lived retired from all external recreations and was unceasingly engaged in the labors of his life.

Doubtless the possession of this woman was in many respects invaluable for Pericles. Not only were her accomplishments the delights of the leisure hours which he allowed himself and the recreation of his mind from its cares, but she also kept him in intercourse with the daily life around him. She possessed what he lacked—the power of being perfectly at ease in every kind of society; she kept herself informed of everything that took place in the city; nor can distant countries have escaped her attention, since she is said to have first acquainted Pericles with Sicilian oratory, which was at that time developing itself.

She was of use to him through her various connections at home and abroad as well as by the keen glance of her feminine sagacity and by her knowledge of men. Thus the foremost woman of her age lived in the society of the man whose superiority of mind had placed him at the head of the first city of the Hellenes, in loyal devotion to her friend and husband; and although the mocking spirits at Athens eagerly sought out every blemish which could be discovered in the life of Pericles, yet no calumny was ever able to vilify this rare union and to blacken its memory.

Pericles had no leisure for occupying himself with the management of his private property. He farmed out his lands and intrusted the money to his faithful slave Evangelus, who accurately knew the measure which his master deemed the right one, and managed the household accordingly; which, indeed, presented a striking contrast to those of the wealthy families of Athens, and ill corresponded to the tastes of Pericles’s sons as they grew up. For in it there was no overflow, no joyous and reckless expenditure, but so careful an economy that everything was calculated down to drachm and obolus.

Pericles was perfectly convinced that nothing short of a perfectly blameless integrity and the severest self-abnegation could render possible the permanency of his influence over his fellow-citizens and prevent the exposure of even the smallest blot to his cavilers and enemies. After Themistocles had for the first time shown how a statesman and general might enrich himself, Pericles was in this respect the admirer and most faithful follower of Aristides, and in the matter of conscientiousness went even much further than Cimon, spurning on principle every opportunity offered by the office of general for a perfectly justifiable personal enrichment.

All attempts to bribe him remained useless. His lofty sentiments are evidenced by the remark which he addressed to Sophocles, who fell in love even in his old age: “Not only the hands, but the eyes also of a general should practice continence.” The more vivid the appreciation he felt for female charms the more highly must we esteem the equanimity to which he had attained by means of a self-command which had become a matter of habit with him; nor did anything make so powerful an impression upon the changeable Athenians as the immovable calm of this great man.

Pericles was neither a lengthy nor a frequent speaker. He avoided nothing more scrupulously than superfluous words, and therefore as often as he appeared before the people he prayed to Zeus to guard him from useless words. But the brief words which he actually spoke made a proportionately deep impression upon the citizens. His conception of his calling was too solemn and lofty to permit him to consent to talk as the multitude liked. He was not afraid when he found the citizens weak and irresolute to express to them bitter truths and serious blame.

His speeches always endeavored to place every case in connection with facts of a more general kind, so as to instruct and elevate the minds of the citizens; he never grew weary of pointing out how no individual happiness was conceivable from the welfare of the entire body; he proved to the citizens the claim which he had established upon their confidence; he clearly and concisely developed his political views, endeavoring not to talk over his hearers, but to convince them; and when the feeling of his own superiority was about to tempt him to despise the multitude, he admonished himself to be patient and long suffering. “Take heed, Pericles,” he cried to himself, “those whom thou rulest are Hellenes, citizens of Athens.”

The principles of the statesmanship of Pericles were so simple that all citizens were perfectly capable of understanding them; and he attached a particular value to the idea that the Athenians instead of, like the Lacedæmonians, seeking their strength in an affectation of secrecy, were unwilling to overcome their enemies by deception and cunning stratagems. As the Persian war had seemed inevitable to Themistocles, so the struggle with Sparta loomed as certain before the eyes of Pericles. The term of peace allowed before its outbreak had accordingly to be employed by Athens in preparing herself for the struggle awaiting her forces. When at last the critical hour arrived Athens was to stand before her assailants firm and invincible, with her walls for a shield and her navy for a sword.

The long schooling through which Pericles had passed in the art of war and the rare combination of caution and energy which he had displayed in every command held by him had secured him the confidence of the citizens. Therefore they for a succession of years elected him general, and as such invested him with an extraordinary authority, which reduced the offices of the other nine generals to mere posts of honor which were filled by persons agreeable to him. During the period of his administration the whole centers of gravity of public life lay in this office.

Inasmuch as Pericles, besides the authority of a “strategy” prolonged to him in an extraordinary degree, also filled the office of superintendent of the finances; inasmuch as he was repeatedly and for long periods of years superintendent of public works; inasmuch as his personal influence was so great that he could in all important matters determine the civic elections according to his wish; it is easy to understand how he ruled the state in time of war and peace, and how the power of both the council and of the whole civic body in all essentials passed into his hands.

He was the type of temperance and sobriety. He made it a rule never to assist at a festive banquet; and no Athenian could remember to have seen Pericles, since he stood at the head of the state, in the company of friends over the wine-cup. He was known to no man except as one serious and collected, full of grave thoughts and affairs. His whole life was devoted to the service of the state, and his power accompanied by so thorough a self-denial and so full a measure of labor that the multitude in its love of enjoyment could surely not regard the possession of that power as an enviable privilege. For him there existed only one road, which he was daily seen to take, the road leading from his house to the market-place and the council-hall, the seat of the government, where the current business of state was transacted.