PERIGEE 



PERISCOPE 



face of serious opposition, at first from Cimon 

 and later from Thucydides, but both these 

 rivals were banished. One great obstacle to 

 the success of Pericles was the Areopagus, the 

 chief Athenian court, but he succeeded in di- 

 vesting this of all its valuable political power. 



Public officials in Athens before this time had 

 been unpaid, but Pericles introduced salaries, 

 first for the archons and laters for all offices. 

 He also provided that the state should pay the' 

 admission fees to the theater for all who could 

 not afford to do it themselves, attendance on 

 the drama being a religious rite. As ardently 

 as he hoped to make Athens a democracy, he 

 hoped also to make it supreme in Greece, even 

 dreaming of a league which should unite all 

 the Greek states under the leadership of Athens. 



Beautiful Athens. In pursuance of his de- 

 signs Aegina and Naupactus were reduced. Eu- 

 boea was won back and Samos was subdued. 

 The subject states poured money into the Athe- 

 nian treasury, and with these funds Pericles 

 embellished the city. The temple of Athena 

 Nike, the Propylaea, and greatest of all, the 

 Parthenon, were but a few of the magnificent 

 works which were produced under his guidance. 

 These gave employment to many men, and 

 Athens enjoyed a period of unexampled pros- 

 perity. Literature and philosophy flourished 

 also, and had their part in making Athens the 

 cultural center of Greece. 



Died at Height of Power. As to how large a 

 part Pericles had in bringing on the Pelopon- 

 nesian War there has been considerable discus- 

 sion. The basal cause, however, was the jeal- 

 ousy of Sparta towards Athens, and the conflict 

 could not well have been avoided. Pericles 

 called into the city all the inhabitants of the sur- 

 rounding district, which he allowed the Spartans 

 and their allies to ravage as they pleased, while 

 he made plans to retaliate by means of a navy. 

 In 430 B. c. the plague broke out in Athens, and 

 the mortality was terrible. Blaming Pericles for 

 their woes the people deposed him, but he 

 was soon recalled and made even more power- 

 ful than before. The plague, however, attacked 

 him, and in 429 B. c. he died. A. MC c. 



In addition to references above, see ATHENS, 

 subhead The Ancient City; for the social aspects 

 of his career see ASPASIA. Consult Abbott's 

 Pericles and the Golden Age of Athena. 



PERIGEE, per'ije, from two Greek words 

 meaning near and earth, is applied in astronomy 

 to that part of the moon's orbit which is nearest 

 the earth's surface. When at this point, the 

 moon is said to be in perigee. The word at one 



tune was used to designate the similar portions 

 of the orbit of any heavenly body. The point 

 opposite the perigee is called the apogee. See 

 MOON; APSIDES. 



PERIPATETIC, pcripatet'ik, SCHOOL OF 

 PHILOSOPHY, the followers of the Greek 

 philosopher, Aristotle, so called from Aristotle's 

 habit of walking about beneath the porticoes of 

 the Lyceum at Athens as he lectured. The 

 word peripatetic is derived from a Greek 

 word meaning given to walking about. Aris- 

 totle's philosophy is the culmination of that de- 

 veloped under his predecessors, Socrates and 

 Plato, and is based on the principle that all 

 thinking must be founded upon the observation 

 of facts. It was 

 Aristotle's sys- 

 tematic mind 

 that first divided 

 philosophy into 

 i t s departments 

 of ethics, psy- 

 chology, logic, 

 etc., and he is 

 known as the 

 founder of these 

 as separate 

 sciences. The 

 Peripatetic 

 School was 

 greatly aided in 

 its researches by 

 the gifts of Alex- 

 ander the Great, 

 who when a lad 

 was tutored by 

 Aristotle. See 

 ARISTOTLE ; PHI- 

 LOSOPHY. 



PERISCOPE, 

 the "eye" of a 

 submarine. It is 

 an optical instru- 

 ment by which 

 objects or ships 

 which are on the 

 surface of the 

 water can be seen 

 at a distance from 

 the inside of a 

 submerged sub- 

 marine, and is constructed upon the same prin- 

 ciples as the telescope (which 'see). In its 

 simplest form it consists of a vertical tube 

 which is provided at each end with a reflecting 

 mirror or prism. These reflecting surfaces are 



PRINCIPLE OF THE 



PERISCOPE 



This crude device was de- 

 veloped to aid in trench war- 

 fare on the battle fields of Eu- 

 rope before the end of 1914. 

 Two mirrors (a a) are placed 

 in such positions that beams 

 of light entering the open 

 space at the top are reflected 

 into the field glasses. The 

 periscope is not a new idea in 

 mechanics ; it applies the 

 physical laws that light trav- 

 els in a straight line and that 

 the angle of incidence equals 

 the angle of reflection. (See 

 page 3424.) The submarine 

 periscope is still further per- 

 fected. 



