1832.] [ 547 ] 



PERICLES A TALE OF GREECE.* 



THE scene of our tale is a place known to all by name, and endeared to 

 most by numberless pleasing associations Athens ! Sublime sound ! 

 all-expressive name ! Personification of all that is great and glorious ! 

 Embodiment of all perfections ! Here Theseus reigned, here Homer 

 sung, here Phidias and Apelles painted, here thundered the first of orators, 

 and here the groves of Academus resounded with the instructions of 

 Plato j and here were fought the greatest battles that ever engaged the 

 warrior's sword, or the historian's pen. 



The date of our story is referred to that period in the history of Greece 

 which has been termed par excellence the age of Pericles j when Greece 

 in general was enjoying the highest prosperity, and the star of Athens was 

 at its culminating point j when Greece was the greatest country in the 

 civilised world, and Athens the greatest city in Greece. The Persian 

 power had been reduced by the efforts of the valorous and patriotic Cimon 

 to a state, if not of subjection, at least of fear $ the rival Sparta had sus- 

 tained no inconsiderable shock from the same dreaded sword ; the Athenians 

 had carried their arms successfully against the cities of the continent and the 

 islands of the sea; and, by putting into execution the splendid schemes of 

 Themistocles, had acquired a maritime power superior to that of any other 

 nation, and Athens now ruled the ascendant of the Hellenic world. 



Pericles had since his supremacy made considerable innovations on the 

 exclusive parts of Solon's constitution, and, by diminishing the power of 

 the Areopagus, formerly esteemed a most venerable and divine institution 

 an institution too sacred for its members to meet under a common roof 

 too sacred for its deliberations to be conducted under any other covert 

 but the wide canopy of heaven by diminishing the power of this court, 

 he had introduced the lowest order of people to an equal share of power 

 with the nobles ; and had thus brought in a more confirmed and radical 

 democracy than had ever existed before, and verified the apparently para- 

 doxical assertion of Aristotle, that " democracy and tyranny are closely 

 allied" for the people had now the chief power in the state and acted 

 without the least controul or restraint j though the old families of the 

 nobility still looked on these newly constituted legislators as lawless 

 invaders, and usurpers of their rightful province. 



This brief outline of the state of things in Greece, and of the political 

 relations in which the two dominant nations of the Peloponnesus stood to 

 each other, it seemed necessary to prefix to our narrative, that no reference 

 or allusion might be misunderstood for want of such illustration. 



It was one of those evenings in the month of Hecatombacon, (answering 

 to the latter part of our June and the beginning of July,) when the sun, as 

 if conscious of having fulfilled his diurnal office, and yet reluctant to leave 

 the sphere of earth, declines behind the distant hills 5 when everything is 

 still, through all nature it was on such an evening as this, that two 

 young Greeks were rowing down the silver-streaming Cephisus, with 

 that air of luxuriant carelessness and negligence, which usually attaches 



* Translated from the original Greek ; a MS. copy of which (the only one extant) has 

 recently been sent to us by a member of the distinguished Italian Society, the Arcadians. 

 It appears to have been written by a native of Athens, some time after the date of the 

 events it records. ED. 



