224 B. Perrin, The Austere Consistency of Pericles. 



such a change as that which Plutarch assumes in him be based on 

 sound psychology, any more than that which Ferrero assumes in 

 Julius Csesar, at the outbreak of the Civil War, into " a new and 

 unexpected character, — that of the moderate and exemplary citizen 

 disposed to every reasonable concession and solely desirous of the 

 public good." No wonder that Csesar is to Ferrero " the psycho- 

 logical puzzle of the age." The " Protean changes " through which 

 he is made to pass are due in great part to the historian's nimble 

 passage from one set of traditions to another and a conflicting one. 

 Great natures do not suffer complete change in the hour of their 

 maturity, though they may be judged very differently by con- 

 temporary or later observers. According to the view of Thucydides, 

 Pericles won and kept his marvelous power over the Athenian 

 people by the same means. He trained and educated them up to 

 their imperial calling by a consistent and methodical statesmanship. 

 There was no change in his teaching or his method. His great 

 work, at least in its outward semblance, though the memory of it is 

 an abiding inspiration of the race, perished for lack of continued 

 teaching and method like his. And both Thucydides and Plato 

 judge the man after his great work had apparently perished. Both 

 their estimates of the man may, therefore, in a sense, be right, but 

 not by reason of any change in Pericles. And one may cling to 

 the Thucydidean estimate of Pericles, and yet follow Wilamowitz 

 when he says {Aristoieles und Atlien, ii, p. 102) : " die athenische 

 demokratie, wie Perikles sie vollendet hat, ist ein gebilde, zu fein 

 fiir menschen, und darum denen selbst verderblich, die sie zur 

 herrschaft beruft ; an der politik des Perikles ist Hellas zu grunde 

 gegangen. aber was ware schon, das fiir die menschen nicht zu 

 fein ware? Platons Staat ist es erst recht, und der staatsmann, 

 der in der grauenhaften folge von wiisten und blutigen jahrhunderten, 

 die wir weltgeschichte nennen, einen augenblick geschaffen hat, 

 zu dem wir sagen mogen, verweile doch, du bist so schon, ist trotz 

 allem ein grosser zauberer gewesen." 



Yale University. B. Perrin. 



