IX. Thucydides represents the constitution under Perikles as a democracy in name, but really an aristocracy, because the government was all in the hands of one leading citizen. But as many other writers tell us that during his administration the people received grants of land abroad, and were indulged with dramatic entertainments, and payments for their services, in consequence of which they fell into bad habits, and became extravagant and licentious, instead of sober hard-working people as they had been before, let us consider the history of this change, viewing it by the light of the facts themselves. First of all, as we have already said, Perikles had to measure himself with Kimon, and to transfer the affections of the people from Kimon to himself. As he was not so rich a man as Kimon, who used from his own ample means to give a dinner daily to any poor Athenian who required it, clothe aged persons, and take away the fences round his property, so that any one might gather the fruit, Perikles, unable to vie with him in this, turned his attention to a distribution of the public funds among the people, at the suggestion, we are told by Aristotle, of Damonides of Oia. By the money paid for public spectacles, for citizens acting as jurymen and other paid offices, and largesses, he soon won over the people to his side, so that he was able to use them in his attack upon the Senate of the Areopagus, of which he himself was not a member, never having been chosen Archon, or Thesmothete, or King Archon, or Polemarch. These offices had from ancient times been obtained by lot, and it was only through them that those who had approved themselves in the discharge of them were advanced to the Areopagus. For this reason it was that Perikles, when he gained strength with the populace, destroyed this Senate, making Ephialtes bring forward a bill which restricted its judicial powers, while he himself succeeded in getting Kimon banished by ostracism, as a friend of Sparta and a hater of the people, although he was second to no Athenian in birth or fortune, had won most brilliant victories over the Persians, and had filled Athens with plunder and spoils of war, as will be found related in his life. So great was the power of Perikles with the common people.
X. One of the provisions of ostracism was that the person banished should remain in exile for ten years. But during this period the Lacedaemonians with a great force invaded the territory of Tanagra, and, as the Athenians at once marched out to attack them, Kimon came back from exile, took his place in full armour among the ranks of his own tribe, and hoped by distinguishing himself in the battle amongst his fellow citizens to prove the falsehood of the Laconian sympathies with which he had been charged. However, the friends of Perikles drove him away, as an exile. On the other hand, Perikles fought more bravely in that battle than he had ever fought before, and surpassed every one in reckless daring. The friends of Kimon also, whom Perikles had accused of Laconian leanings, fell, all together, in their ranks; and the Athenians felt great sorrow for their treatment of Kimon, and a great longing for his restoration, now that they had lost a great battle on the frontier, and expected to be hard pressed during the summer by the Lacedaemonians. Perikles, perceiving this, lost no time in gratifying the popular wish, but himself proposed the decree for his recall; and Kimon on his return reconciled the two States, for he was on familiar terms with the Spartans, who were hated by Perikles and the other leaders of the common people. Some say that, before Kimon's recall by Perikles, a secret compact was made with him by Elpinike, Kimon's sister, that Kimon was to proceed on foreign service against the Persians with a fleet of two hundred ships, while Perikles was to retain his power in the city. It is also said that, when Kimon was being tried for his life, Elpinike softened the resentment of Perikles, who was one of those appointed to impeach him. When Elpinike came to beg her brother's life of him, he answered with a smile, "Elpinike, you are too old to meddle in affairs of this sort." But, for all that, he spoke only once, for form's sake, and pressed Kimon less than any of his other prosecutors. How, then, can one put any faith in Idomeneus, when he accuses Perikles of procuring the assassination of his friend and colleague Ephialtes, because he was jealous of his reputation? This seems an ignoble calumny, which Idomeneus has drawn from some obscure source to fling at a man who, no doubt, was not faultless, but of a generous spirit and noble mind, incapable of entertaining so savage and brutal a design. Ephialtes was disliked and feared by the nobles, and was inexorable in punishing those who wronged the people; wherefore his enemies had him assassinated by means of Aristodikus of Tanagra. This we are told by Aristotle. Kimon died in Cyprus, while in command of the Athenian forces.
XI. The nobles now perceived that Perikles was the most important man in the State, and far more powerful than any other citizen; wherefore, as they still hoped to check his authority, and not allow him to be omnipotent, they set up Thucydides, of the township of Alopekae, as his rival, a man of good sense, and a relative of Kimon, but less of a warrior and more of a politician, who, by watching his opportunities, and opposing Perikles in debate, soon brought about a balance of power. He did not allow the nobles to mix themselves up with the people in the public assembly, as they had been wont to do, so that their dignity was lost among the masses; but he collected them into a separate body, and by thus concentrating their strength was able to use it to counterbalance that of the other party. From the beginning these two factions had been but imperfectly welded together, because their tendencies were different; but now the struggle for power between Perikles and Thucydides drew a sharp line of demarcation between them, and one was called the party of the Many, the other that of the Few. Perikles now courted the people in every way, constantly arranging public spectacles, festivals, and processions in the city, by which he educated the Athenians to take pleasure in refined amusements; and also he sent out sixty triremes to cruise every year, in which many of the people served for hire for eight months, learning and practising seamanship. Besides this he sent a thousand settlers to the Chersonese, five hundred to Naxos, half as many to Andros, a thousand to dwell among the Thracian tribe of the Bisaltae, and others to the new colony in Italy founded by the city of Sybaris, which was named Thurii. By this means he relieved the state of numerous idle agitators, assisted the necessitous, and overawed the allies of Athens by placing his colonists near them to watch their behaviour.
XII. The building of the temples, by which Athens was adorned, the people delighted, and the rest of the world astonished, and which now alone prove that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are no fables, was what particularly excited the spleen of the opposite faction, who inveighed against him in the public assembly, declaring that the Athenians had disgraced themselves by transferring the common treasury of the Greeks from the island of Delos to their own custody. "Perikles himself," they urged, "has taken away the only possible excuse for such an act—the fear that it might be exposed to the attacks of the Persians when at Delos, whereas it would be safe at Athens. Greece has been outraged, and feels itself openly tyrannised over, when it sees us using the funds which we extorted from it for the war against the Persians, for gilding and beautifying our city, as if it were a vain woman, and adorning it with precious marbles, and statues, and temples, worth a thousand talents." To this Perikles replied, that the allies had no right to consider how their money was spent, so long as Athens defended them from the Persians; while they supplied neither horses, ships, nor men, but merely money, which the Athenians had a right to spend as they pleased, provided they afforded them that security which it purchased. It was right, he argued, that, after the city had provided all that was necessary for war, it should devote its surplus money to the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, while these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed, and encouraging all sorts of handicraft, so that nearly the whole city would earn wages, and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself. For those who were in the flower of their age, military service offered a means of earning money from the common stock; while, as he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yet to see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid the foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every kind to complete them; and he had done this in the interests of the lower classes, who thus, although they remained at home, would have just as good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who were serving at sea, in garrison, or in the field. The different materials used, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood, and so forth, would require special artizans for each, such as carpenters, modellers, smiths, stone masons, dyers, melters and moulders of gold, and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers in relief; and also men to bring them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships and pilots for such as came by sea; and, for those who came by land, carriage builders, horse breeders, drivers, rope makers, linen manufacturers, shoemakers, road menders, and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed a number of unskilled labourers, so that, in a word, there would be work for persons of every age and every class, and general prosperity would be the result.
XIII. These buildings were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty and grace, as the workmen endeavoured to make the execution surpass the design in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with which they were built. All these edifices, each of which one would have thought, it would have taken many generations to complete, were all finished during the most brilliant period of one man's administration. We are told that Zeuxis, hearing Agatharchus, the painter, boasting how easily and rapidly he could produce a picture, said, "I paint very slowly." Ease, and speed of execution, seldom produces work of any permanent value or delicacy. It is the time which is spent in laborious production for which we are repaid by the durable character of the result. And this makes Perikles's work all the more wonderful, because it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages. In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it was built; but even at the present day the work looks as fresh as ever, for they bloom with an eternal freshness which defies time, and seems to make the work instinct with an unfading spirit of youth.
The overseer and manager of the whole was Pheidias, although there were other excellent architects and workmen, such as Kallikrates and Iktinus, who built the Parthenon on the site of the old Hekatompedon, which had been destroyed by the Persians, and Koroebus, who began to build the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis, but who only lived to see the columns erected and the architraves placed upon them. On his death, Metagenes, of Xypete, added the frieze and the upper row of columns, and Xenokles, of Cholargos, crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine. As to the long wall, about which Sokrates says that he heard Perikles bring forward a motion, Kallikrates undertook to build it. Kratinus satirises the work for being slowly accomplished, saying
"He builds in speeches, but he does no work."
The Odeum, which internally consisted of many rows of seats and many columns, and externally of a roof sloping on all sides from a central point, was said to have been built in imitation of the king of Persia's tent, and was built under Perikles's direction. For this reason Kratinus alludes to him in his play of the 'Thracian Woman'—
"Our Jove with lofty skull appears;
The Odeum on his head he bears,
Because he fears the oyster-shell no more."
Perikles at that period used his influence to pass a decree for establishing a musical competition at the Panathenaic festival; and, being himself chosen judge, he laid down rules as to how the candidates were to sing, and play the flute or the harp. At that period, and ever afterwards, all musical contests took place in the Odeum.