Cimon was now dead, and was succeeded in the leadership of the aristocratic party by Thucydides, son of Milcsins, who in 444 B.c. made a strong effort to overthrow the supremacy of Pericles by attacking him in the popular assembly for squandering the public money on buildings, and iu festivals and amusements. Thucydides made an effective speech; but Pericles immediately rose and offered to execute the buildings at his own expense, if the eilizens`would allow him to put his own name upon them instead of theirs. The sarcasm was successful, and Pericles was empowered to do as he pleas( d in the matter. But Pericles did not mean to be simply sarcastic; he wished to point out to the Athenians in a delicate way the spirit and aim of 'his policy, which was to make Athens, as a city, worthy of being the head and crown of Hellas. his victory in the assembly was followed by the ostracism of Thucydides; and during the rest of his can er "there was," says the historian Thucydides, "in name a democracy, but in reality a government in the hands of the first man." The same author, however, informs us that he never (lid anything unworthy of his high position; did not flatter the pen, pie, or oppress his adversaries; and that with all his unlimited command of tire public purse, he was personally incorruptible. Soon after this the Saurian war broke out, in which Pericles acquired high renown as a naval commander. This war originated in a quarrel between tne Milesians and Simians. in which Athens was led to take a part with the former. The Samians, after an obstinate struggle, were beaten, and a peace was concluded in 440 B.C. in which Athens then stood towards many of the Greek states was peculiar. 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 got_ the treasury removed to Athens, and, commuting the contingents of the allies for money—Athens, of course, herself undertaking to protect the confederacy—enormously irereased the con tributions; to the "patriotic fund." The grand charge against Pericles is, that he
applied the money thus obtained to, other purposes than those for which it was designed; that, in short, he adorned and enriched Athens with the spoils of the allied states. But the objection is more plausible than solid, for, in point of fact, Athens kept up in admir able discipline a great fleet and a fine army, and Pericles made the Greek name more respected in his time than it had ever been before. It may be'lliat his conduct is open to criticism in some respects, but at broad and just view of the motives which impelled him to act as he did, and a fair consideration of the political exigences of the time will, in the main, justify his procedure. It is unnecessary to give a detailed account of all that he did to make his native city the most glorious in the ancient world. Greek archi tecture and sculpture, under his patronage, reached perfection. To Pericles, Athens owed the Parthenon, the Propylma, the Oneum, and numberless other public and sacred edifices; he also liberally encouraged music and the drama; and, during his rule, indus try and commerce were in so flourishing a condition, that prosperity was universal in Attica.
At length in 431 B.C., the long-foreseen and inevitable "Peloponnesian war" broke out between Athens and Sparta. With the circumstances that led to it we have not here to do, but as it terminated most disastrously for Athens, it is but right to say that Peri cles is not to blame for the result. Had the policy which he recommended been pur sued, one can hardly doubt that Athens, with her immense resources, would have been the victor, and not the vanquished, iu the struggle. Pericles himself died in the autumn of 429 B.C., after a lingering sickness. His character has been sufficiently delineated in the outline of his life which we have given. Ilis connection with the brilliant Aspasia (q.v.) is noticed elsewhere.