The Historians' History of the World 03

His personal appearance was graceful and majestic, notwithstanding a remarkable disproportion in the length of his head, which became a subject of inexhaustible pleasantry for the comic poets of this day: but the old men who remembered Pisistratus, were struck by the resemblance which they discovered between the tyrant and the young heir of the Alemæonids, and not only in their features, but in the sweetness of voice, and the volubility of utterance, with which both expressed themselves. Still, after the ostracism of Themistocles, and the death of Aristides, while Cimon was engaged in continual expeditions, Pericles began to present himself more and more to the public eye, and was soon the acknowledged chief of a powerful party, which openly aimed at counteracting Cimon’s influence, and introducing opposite maxims into the public counsels.

To some of the ancients indeed it appeared that the course of policy adopted by Pericles was entirely determined by the spirit of emulation, which induced him to take a different ground from that which he found already occupied by Cimon: and that, as Cimon was at the head of the aristocratical party which had been represented by Aristides, he therefore placed himself in the front of that which had been led by Themistocles. The difference between these parties, after the revolution by which the ancestor of Pericles had undermined the power of the old aristocracy, was for some time very faintly marked, and we have seen that Aristides himself was the author of a very democratical measure, which threw the first officers of the state open to all classes of the citizens. The aristocracy had no hope of recovering what it had lost; but, as the commonalty grew more enterprising, it became also more intent on keeping all that it had retained, and on stopping all further innovation at home. Abroad too, though it was no longer a question, whether Athens should continue to be a great maritime power, or should reduce her navy to the footing of the old naucraries

, and though Cimon himself had actively pursued the policy of Themistocles, there was room for great difference of opinion as to the course which was to be followed in her foreign relations. The aristocratical party wished, for their own sake at least as much as for that of peace and justice, to preserve the balance of power as steady as possible in Greece, and directed the Athenian arms against the Persian empire with the greater energy, in the hope of diverting them from intestine warfare. The democratical party had other interests, and concurred only with that part of these views which tended towards enriching and aggrandising the state.

It is difficult wholly to clear Pericles from the charge of having been swayed by personal motives in the choice of his political system, as it would be to establish it. But even if it were certain that his decision was not the result of conviction, it might as fairly be attributed to a hereditary prepossession in favour of the principles for which his ancestors had contended, and which had probably been transmitted in his family, as to his competition with Cimon, or to his fear of incurring the suspicion that he aimed at a tyranny, or unconstitutional power; a suspicion to which he was much more exposed in the station which he actually filled. But if his personal character might seem better adapted to an aristocratical than to a democratical party, it must also render us unwilling to believe, that he devoted himself to the cause of the commonalty merely that he might make it the instrument of his own ambition. There seems to be much better ground for supposing that he deliberately preferred the system which he adopted, as the most consistent, if not alone reconcilable, with the prosperity and safety of Athens: though his own agency in directing and controlling it might be a prominent object in all his views. But he might well think that the people had gone too far to remain stationary, even if there was any reason why it should not seize the good which lay within its reach. Its greatness had risen with the growth of the commonalty, and, it might appear to him, could only be maintained and extended by the same means: at home by a decided ascendency of the popular interest over that of the old aristocracy, and every other class in the state; abroad by an equally decided supremacy over the rest of Greece.

The contest between the parties seems for some time to have been carried on, without much violence or animosity, and rather with a noble emulation in the service of the public, than with assaults on one another. Cimon had enriched his country with the spoil and ransom of the Persians; and he had also greatly increased his private fortune. His disposition was naturally inclined to liberality, and he made a munificent use of his wealth.