CHAMBERS^ INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



imagined before. When he spoke, he 'thundered 

 and lightened,' as it was expressed. He cordially 

 embraced the democratic party, yet no one more 

 scorned the arts of the demagogue ; and it is 

 generally agreed that lv :.ded in all his 



measures by sincere patriotism, singularly un- 

 sullied by personal motives. Under his sway, the 

 power of the dfmos or people was made more 

 direct and effective, and most offices became open 

 alike to rich and poor. The judicial power was 

 transferred from individual magistrates to dicas- 

 tfrifs, or panels of jurors. Six thousand citizens 

 were annually chosen by lot to act as dicasts or 

 jurors ; and were distributed into ten panels of 

 500 each, with a r< ': to supply 



vacancies ; and before some one of these dicas- 

 teries, every case was brought by the magistrate 

 for decision. The court of Areopagus, the strong- 

 hold of the oligarchical party, was left little juris- 

 diction, except in cases of murder. 



The city of Athens, under the administration of 

 Pericles, rose to extraordinary splendour. In the 

 480 B.C it had been utterly ruined by Xerxes ; 

 but ere the lapse of forty-eight years, her walls, 

 docks, arsenals, temples, statues, paintings, had 

 stamped her as the imperial city of Greece, her 

 outward magnificence conferring on her a moral 

 ascendency beyond her direct power. The har- 

 bour of Pincus, containing the arsenal and docks, 

 was connected with the city by two parallel lines 

 of wall, four and a half miles long, so that city 

 and harbour formed one continuous fortification. 

 Among the many decorative works, the greatest 

 was the temple of Athena (Minerva), called the 

 henon, adorned with a colossal statue of the 

 goddess, forty-seven feet high, of ivory and gold, 

 and other master-pieces of sculpture. Phidias was" 

 the director of the ornamental part of these works, 

 having under him a school of pupils, and subordi- 

 nates. The religious processions and festivals, 

 and the theatrical exhibitions connected with 

 them, were now conducted at Athens in a style 

 of magnificence unattained elsewhere ; and the 

 poorer citizens were furnished from the public 

 treasury with the means of attending these public 

 shows and amusements. Pericles has been blamed 

 for introducing this custom, as well as for that of 

 paying the dicasts for their attendance at trials. 

 The Athenians became accustomed, it is said, to 

 spend their time in idleness and amusement, and 

 that at the expense of their allies, from whose con- 

 tributions chiefly the cost of all these embellish- 

 ments of Athens was defrayed. 



The Pcloponnesian War. 



In 445 B.C. a truce, to last for thirty years, had 

 been concluded between Sparta and her adherents 

 on the one side and Athens on the other; but 

 before fourteen years had elapsed, the mutual 

 animosities had risen to such a height that hos- 

 tilities could no longer be postponed. The imme- 

 diate occasion of the outbreak was a quarrel 

 between Corinth and her colony of Corcyra 

 (Corfu). The Corcyraans appealed to the Athe- 

 nians, who entered into alliance with them, and 

 interfering in a naval engagement between the 

 two, caused the Corinthians to retreat. The Pelo- 

 ponnesians considered this as an infringement of 

 the thirty years' truce, and both parties prepared 

 for the war. 



This contest, known as the Peloponnesian War 



94 



431 B.C. was protracted over twenty-seven 

 s, and ended in the complete destruction of 

 Athenian ascendency. The Athenians were all- 

 powerful at sea, but were unable to meet the large 

 armies of the Peloponnesian confederates by land. 

 When, therefore, the Spartan king, Archidamus, 

 invaded Attica, they followed the advice of Pericles, 

 and gathered the country residents with their 

 movable property within the walls, conveying their 

 sheep and cattle to the adjacent islands. This 

 devastation of Attica was annually renewed for a 

 succession of years, the Athenians meanwhile sail- 

 ing round and ravaging the coasts of Peloponnesus. 



The Plague. In the second year of this destruc- 

 tive and fruitless war, Athens was visited by a 

 terrible pestilence. It is described as having been 

 a species of infectious fever, accompanied with 

 many painful symptoms, and followed, in those 

 who survived the first stages of the disease, by 

 ulcerations of the bowels and limbs. The mor- 

 tality was dreadful, and was of course greatly 

 increased by the overcrowded state of the city. 

 The prayers of the devout and the skill of the 

 physicians were found equally unavailing to stop 

 the progress of the disease ; and the Athenians, 

 reduced to despair, believed themselves to be for- 

 gotten or hated by their gods. The sick were left 

 unattended, and the bodies of the dead allowed 

 to lie unburied, while those whom the plague had 

 not yet reached, openly set at defiance all laws, 

 human and divine, and rushed into every excess 

 of criminal indulgence. 



In the impatience produced by this complication 

 of suffering, the political enemies of Pericles began 

 to turn the irritation of the public mind against 

 him as the cause of the war. They even brought 

 against him a charge of pecuniary malversation, 

 and the veteran statesman was fined and deposed 

 from his office as general A reaction, however, 

 soon took place, and Pericles was speedily restored 

 to office and public confidence. But he was now 

 almost heart-broken by domestic calamity, the 

 epidemic having carried off both his legitimate 

 sons and other members of his family, as well as 

 his best political friends ; and in 429 B.C. he died 

 of a wasting fever. It is related that, when he 

 was lying at the point of death, and while those 

 who surrounded him were recounting his great 

 actions, he suddenly interrupted them by express- 

 ing his surprise that they should bestow so much 

 praise on achievements in which he had been 

 rivalled by many others, while they omitted to 

 mention what he considered his highest and pecu- 

 liar honour namely, that no act of his had ever 

 caused any Athenian to put on mourning. 



Athens had to struggle not only with her power- 

 ful enemies, but with repeated revolts of her 

 subjects. In the seventh year of the war, she 

 gained a signal advantage, by the capture of a 

 large body of Spartan citizens of high family, on 

 the island of Sphacteria, in what is now the Bay 

 of Navarino. The desire to obtain the release of 

 these prisoners, induced the Lacedaemonians, four 

 years later, when their victorious general, Brasidas, 

 had inflicted severe humiliations on the Athe- 

 nians, to come to terms of peace, each party agree- 

 ing to surrender what it had acquired in the war. 

 This treaty was known as the Peace of Nicias, 

 from the name of the leader of the peace-party at 

 Athens. 

 The peace was but of short duration. The 



