govern, Pericles, after having reflected upon his conduct, judged it expedient to live in retirement, to avoid the applause of the people, who become weary as they

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lavish their praise, and to govern the multitude by those incitements which flattered them the most-the shew of magnificence in their public games, and grandeur in their monuments, whether of luxury or utility. The fortune of Pericles was an obstacle to the last part of his projects. He could not, like Cimon, employ immense riches to decorate the city, and relieve the indigent; but, by the influence of his popularity, he disposed of the treasure of the Athenians and that of their allies; and, as if nature concurred in the completion of his designs, he covered Athens with temples and edifices, which Art has enumerated among her chef d'œuvres. The Parthenon, the Sanctuary of Eleusis, the Odeon, and the Propylea, soon attracted the attention of a people enamoured of the fine arts, and of every thing that bore the stamp of grandeur and elegance. And to advance his fortune, there sprung up at this memorable epoch, in every part of Greece, those illustrious writers and celebrated artists, who reflected so upon an age, which may be uch lustre called the age of Genius.

But it was not solely by monuments and public festivals that Pericles rendered himself the idol of the people; he effected it still more by the profusion with which he bestowed honours and rewards. He gave pensions to the poor citizens, and distributed among them a portion of the conquered territories. He granted particular privileges to the judges, and to those who assisted at the shews and at the general assembly. The people, who saw only the hand which gave, were blind to the source from whence it was received.

Their attachment to .839 94 9. if

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Pericles even encreased when they observed that this great man maintained in his family the modesty and frugality of ancient times; that he carried into the administration the utmost disinterestedness and unalterable probity; and in the government of the armies had the precaution to put nothing to hazard, and to risk rather the reputation than the safety of the state. Pericles, assured of the devotion of the people of Athens, rendered them accomplices to his ambition: he caused Cimon to be banished, by a false accusation of carrying on a suspicious intercourse with the Lacedæmonians; and under frivolous pretexts destroyed the authority of the court of Areopagus, of which he was not a member, which vigorously opposed all innovation, and restrained the licentiousness of the Athenians.

After the death of Cimon, the nobility seeing Pericles thus rising with rapidity to sovereign power, opposed him in the person of Thucydides. This new rival, the orator of his faction, did not cease to represent Pericles as prodigal of the public finances. Pericles perceiving that the people began to give credit to this accusation, so frequently repeated, asked them one day in a general assembly, if they thought the disbursements too extravagant. "Infinitely so,"-they replied. "Well, then," he retorted, "the whole shall be placed to my individual account, and I will inscribe my name upon these monuments." "Not so," returned the people, with enthusiasm, "Let them be constructed at the expence of the public, and nothing be spared for their completion."

After this victory, carried on by the adroitness of Pericles, he came to so violent a rupture with Thucydides,

that he insisted upon his banishment, or upon being banished himself. Thucydides was vanquished in this conflict of ambition, and his exile tended to annihilate the power of his partizans. All party spirit being now extinguished, concord and unanimity were re-established. Pericles now governed, without any obstacle, the people of Athens; directed, according to his pleasure, the finances, the navy, and the troops: islands and seas were made subservient to his views : he alone governed that vast engine which extended itself not only over the Greeks, but the Barbarians, and which was fortified and cemented by the obedience and the fidelity of the conquered nations, by the friendship of kings, and by treaties ratified with several princes.

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Pericles, by his military expeditions, augmented, for a considerable time, the natural pride and ambition of the Athenians. Under this illustrious general they had made the glorious campaign of the Chersonesus. They had "seen him with a fleet of one hundred ships scour the whole coast of the Peloponnesus; subdue the Sicyonians in the territory of Nemæa; and, sailing afterwards beyond the embouchure of the Achelous, devastate Acarnania, and compel the inhabitants of Eniada to hide themselves within their walls. So many triumphs inspired them with an opinion of their strength, and this sentiment rendered them unjust towards their allies, who for a long time murmured at these tyrannical dispositions. Amongst other subjects of complaint, they reproached the Athenians with having employed, in the embellishment of their city, certain sums of money which had been yearly paid to them to commence war against the Persians. Pericles replied, that the fleets of the republic sheltered her allies from the insults of

barbarians, and that she had no other engagements to fulfil. In consequence of this answer, Eubice, Samos, and Byzantium, revolted; but soon after, Eubice returned to the dominion of the Athenians. Byzantium granted them her accustomed tribute: Sainos, after a vigorous resistance, indemnified them for the expences of the war, surrendered their ships, demolished her walls, and sent hostages to Athens.

The greater glory Pericles acquired the more envy he excited. The league of the Peloponnesus, by which he was regarded as the author of the despotic measures which Athens had adopted towards their allies, raised him many enemies among his own countrymen, Not daring, at first, to attack him in his private life, which was irreproachable, they attacked him in the persons of those he loved. In Anaxagores, his master, in Phidias, his protegé, and in his wife Aspasia, the repository of all his projects, and his tenderest friend. In the end, by degrees, their malevolence reached himself. He was accused of having dissipated, or mis-employed the public treasure, of which he was ordered to render an account. Notwithstanding his integrity, he would doubtless have sunk under this attack, if an unforeseen event had not reseated him in authority. This event was the Peloponnesian war. The origin of this war, and the dissentions which preceded it, being irrelevant to the subject, we shall not enter into any detail of the differences between Corcyra and Corinth, the revolt of Potidea, nor the conduct of Athens towards Megara. The ambition of the Athenians, and the distrust which they justly inspired in the Lacedæmonians, and their allies, appear to be the real motive of this war, so fatal to the city of Athens, and to the liberty of Greece. According to some historians, Peri

PERICLES.

ATHENS.] cles himself fomented it; certain it is, that he did no thing to prevent it, and that it was of infinite importance to the re-establishment of his power.

Fortune, during the first years of the war, appeared to balance between the two rival nations the successes and the defeats; but the prudence of Pericles presented more than once' an useful obstacle to the unreflecting ardour of the Athenians. He would never expose his sol diers to a pitched battle, and preferred seeing the plains of Athens devastated by the Lacedæmonians rather than risk a decisive combat with enemies superior in numbers, and their equal in point of valotir. The Athenians 'murmured at this discretion, which they called cowardice, deprived him of his authority, and condemned him to pay a considerable fine. Pericles did not only experience public misfortunes; at the same moment some private calamities took possession of his great mind. The plague, a scourge from Ethiopia, after having overrun Egypt, Lybia, a part of Persia, and the Isle of Lemnos, then ravaged Athens. Pericles beheld his children perish, and many of his friends. The death of his last son shook his fortitude in a peculiar manner: in attempting to place the crown of flowers on the head of his deceased offspring, he was so overpowered at the sight, that he abandoned himself to the most clamourous and excessive grief.

Athens, at length, dissatisfied with her generals and her magistrates, the weakness of whose talents she had experienced, recalled Pericles, and solicited pardon for her ingratitude. This great man, although disgusted with the possession of power, and overwhelmed at the loss of his children, submitted to the prayers of the people,