PERICARP 



PERICLES 



49 



employed. In cases where there is extensive fluid 

 effusion it may be necessary to aspirate, or, if the 

 tluid be purulent, even to make a free incision. 



The pericardium may also l>e distended with j 

 fluid without inflammation ( hydropericardium ) in 

 the course of general dropsy ; and occasionally is 

 the seat of tumours, syphilitic or tubercular pro- 

 cesses, &c. 



Pericarp. See FBI- IT. 



Pericles, the greatest statesman of ancient 

 Greece, was born of distinguished parentage in 

 the early part of the 5th century B.C. His 

 father was that Xanthippus who won the victory 

 over the Persians at Mycale, 479 B.C. ; and by his 

 mother, Agariste, the niece of the great Athenian 

 reformer Cleisthenes, he was connected with the 

 princely line of Sicyon and the great house of the 

 Alcmteonidoe. He received an elaborate edu- 

 cation ; but of all his teachers the one whom he 

 most reverenced was the serene and humane philo- 

 sopher Anaxagoras. Pericles was conspicuous all 

 through his career for the singular dignity of his 

 manners, the Olympian grandeur of his eloquence, 

 nis 'majestic intelligence,' in Plato's phrase, his 

 -:iu':icity, probity, and profound Athenian patriot- 

 ism, liotli in voice and in appearance he was so 

 like Pisistratus that for some time he was afraid to 

 mine forward in political life. When he entered 

 in public life Aristides had only recently died, 

 I'licmistocleft was an exile, and Cimon was fight- 

 ing the battles of his country abroad. Although 

 tin- family to which he belonged was good, it 

 'li'l not rank among the first in either wealth 

 or influence, yet so transcendent were the abilities 

 of Pericles that he rapidly rose to the highest 

 power in the state as the leader of the domi- 

 nant democracy. The sincerity of his attach- 

 ment to the popular party has lieen questioned, 

 but without a shadow of evidence. At anyrate 

 tin- measures which either personally or through 

 bis adherents he brought forward an<( caused to be 

 |.;i-sed were always in favour of extending the 

 privileges of the poorer class of the citizens, and, 

 if he diminished the spirit of reverence for the 

 ancient institutions of public life, he enlisted an 

 immense body of citizens on the side of law. He 

 extended enormously, if he did not originate, the 

 |ii;irti<'(> of cli>trilniting gratuities among the citi- 

 zens for military service, for acting as dicast and in 

 the Ecclesia, and the like, as well as for admission 

 to the theatre then really a great school for 

 manners and instruction. Pericles seems to have 

 grasped very clearly, and to have held as firmly, 

 the modern radical idea, that, as the state is sup- 

 ported by the taxation of the lxly of the citizens, 

 it must govern with a view to general interests 

 rather than to those of a caste alone. 



About 463 Pericles, through the agency of his 

 follower, Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the 

 influence nf the oligarchy, by causing the decree to 

 be passed which deprived the Areopagus of its most 

 important political powers. Shortly after the 

 democracy obtained another triumph in the ostra- 

 cism of Cimon (461). During the next few years 

 the political course pursue*! by Pericles is less 

 clearly intelligible to us, but it is. safe to say that 

 in general his attitude WHS hostile to the desire for 

 i^'ii conquest or territorial aggrandisement, so 

 prevalent among his ambitious fellow-citizens. 

 Shortly after the battle of Tanagra (457), in which 

 he showed conspicuous courage, Pericles magnani- 

 mously carried the measure for the recall of Cimon. 

 His successful ex]>editionB to the Thracian Cher- 

 sonese, and to Sinopt; on the Black Sea, together 

 with his colonies planted at Naxos, Andros, Orens in 

 Enbom, Brea in Macedonia, and .Kgina, as well as 

 at Thurii in Italy and Amphipolis on the Strymon, 

 368 



did much to extend and confirm the naval suprem- 

 acy of Athens, and afford a means of subsistence 

 for her poorer citizens. But his greatest project 

 was to form in concert with the other Hellenic 

 states a grand Hellenic confederation in order to 

 put an end to the mutually destructive wars of 

 kindred peoples, and to make of Greece one migjity 

 nation, fit to front the outlying world. The idea 

 was not less sagacious than it was grand. Had it 

 been accomplished the semi-barbarous Macedonians 

 would have menaced the civilised Greeks in vain, 

 and even Rome at a later period might perhaps 

 have found the Adriatic, and not the Euphrates, 

 the limit of her empire. But the Spartan aristo- 

 crats were utterly incapable of appreciating such 

 exalted patriotism, or of understanding the political 

 necessity for it, and by their secret intrigues the 

 well-planned scheme was brought to nothing. 

 Athens and Sparta were already in that mood 

 towards each other which rendered the disaster of 

 the Peloponnesian war inevitable. When the 

 Spartans in 448 restored to the Delphians the 

 guardianship of the temple and treasures of Delphi, 

 of which they had been deprived by the Phocians, 

 the Athenians immediately after marched an army 

 thither, and reinstated the latter. Three years 

 later an insurrection broke out in the tributary 

 Megara and Euboea, and the Spartans again 

 appeared in the field as the allied of the insurgents. 

 The position of Athens was critical. Pericles 

 wisely declined to fight against all his enemies at 

 once. A bribe of ten talents' sent the Spartans 

 home, and the insurgents were then thoroughly 

 subdued. The thirty years' peace with Sparta 

 (445) left him free to carry out his schemes for 

 the internal prosperity of Athens. 



Cimon was now dead and was succeeded in the 

 leadership of the aristocratical party by Thucydides, 

 son of Melesias, who in 444 B.C. made a strong 

 effort to overthrow the supremacy of Pericles by 

 attacking him in the popular assembly for squan- 

 dering the public money on buildings and in 

 festiuils and amusements. Thucydides made an 

 effective speech ; but Pericles immediately rose 

 and offered to execute the buildings at his own 

 expense, if the citizens would allow nim to put his 

 own name upon them instead of theirs. The sar- 

 casm was successful, Thucydides was ostracised, 

 and to the end of his life Pericles reigned the un- 

 disputed master of the public policy of Athens. 

 During the rest of his career ' there was,' says the 

 historian Thiicydide, 'in name a democracy, but 

 in reality a government in the hands of the first 

 man. ' And the Athens of his day was the home of 

 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Anaxagoras, Zeno, 

 Protagoras, Socrates, as well as Myron and Phidias ; 

 while there flourished at the same time, but else- 

 where in Greece, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Pindar, 

 Empeilocles, and Democritus. The centre of this 

 splendid group was Pericles, of whom the truthful 

 pen of Thucydides records that he never did any- 

 thing unworthy of his high position, that he did 

 not flatter the people or oppress his adversaries, 

 and that with all his unlimited command of the 

 public purse he was personally incorruptible. 



Soon after this the Samian war broke out, in 

 which Pericles gained high renown as a naval com- 

 mander. This war originated in a quarrel between 

 Miletus and the island of Sanios, in which Athens 

 was led to take part with the former. The Samians 

 after an obstinate struggle were beaten, and a peace 

 was concluded ( 439 ). The position in which Athens 

 then stood towards many of the Greek states was 

 ]>eculiar. Since the time of the Persian invasion 

 she had been the leader of the confederacy formed 

 to resist the attacks of the powerful enemy, and 

 the guardian of the confederate treasury kept in 

 the isle of Delos. Pericles caused the treasury to 



