The Austere Consistency of Pericles. 22H 



The defeat at Tanagra tilled the Athenians with a repentant desire 

 for Cimon, and so Pericles gratified their desire by recalling Cimon 

 from banishment (x). That he might make head against the aristo- 

 cratic party vmder the leadership of Thucydides. Pericles gave the 

 reins to the people, and made his policy one of pleasing them, 

 devising for them pageants, and sending out expeditions and col- 

 onies for their benefit (xi). With his vast building enterprises he 

 robbed the allies to keep the whole cit}- under pay (xii, xiii), and 

 the popularity thus won enal:)led him finally to ostracise Thuc3d- 

 ides (xiv). Thus he succeeded in bringing Athens and her empire 

 under his own sole control (xv, 1). 



•' But then he was no longer the same man as before, nor alike 

 submissive to the people and read}' to give in to the desires of 

 the multitude as a steersman to the breezes, nay, rather, forsaking 

 his former low-keyed and sometimes voluptuous management of the 

 people, as it were a flower}' and soft melody, he struck the high 

 and clear note of an aristocratic and kingly statesmanship, and em- 

 ploying it for the best interests of all in a direct and undeviating 

 fashion, he led the people, for the most part willingly, by his per- 

 suasions and instructions. There were times when they were sorely 

 vexed at him, but then he tightened the reins and forced them 

 into the way of their advantage with a master's hand, for all the 

 world like a wise physician . . . And the reason for his success was 

 not his power as a speaker merely, but, as Thucydides says, the 

 reputation of his life and the confidence reposed in him as one 

 manifestly proven to be utterly disinterested and superior to bribes. 

 He made the city, great as it was when he took it, the greatest 

 and richest of all cities, and grew to be superior in power to kings 

 and tyrants . . ., and yet he did not make his ow^n estate a drachma 

 richer than it was when his father left it to him " (xv, 2-5). 



This assumption of a change in Pericles after his acquisition of 

 complete power is original with Plutarch. It cannot be found in 

 any of his multitudinous sources. Of contemporary witnesses, such 

 as the Comic Poets, Ion, Stesimbrotus, Herodotus, Tluicydides, not 

 one suggests it. The eulogy of Thucydides and the animadversions 

 of Plato and Aristotle alike apply to the entire career of Pericles. 

 We must choose between the two, although an amiable compromise 

 between them may be as convenient for us as for Plutarch. The 

 contemporary and most authoritative evidence presents Pericles as 

 consistent in his austerity, remoteness, and majestic power. He was 

 always the " Olympian." against whose stately figure the w-aves of 

 scurrilous abuse dashed only to be themselves shattered. Nor can 



