The latter is the case. Our judgment of Pericles is based on the immovable foundation of a testimony which stands alone, not only in this respect but also in the whole of Greek literature, the testimony of Thucydides. It is to Thucydides that his greatest contemporary owes the honour accorded to his name by posterity. His summing up amounts to this: Pericles owes the authoritative position which he occupies in the Athenian state, neither to cunning nor force, but exclusively to the trust of his fellow citizens: their trust in the tried greatness of his spirit, the universally recognised purity of his character, the immovable firmness of his will.
He stood, in truth, above the people, whom he ruled as a prince; raised even above the suspicion of dishonesty, raised above the reproach of cringing submissiveness, he stood firm in his superior influence on the resolution of the multitude, because he had not gained possession of it by the employment of unseemly means, but through the esteem of the citizens for his aptitude for government. He did not give way to the pressure of the changing fancies and moods of the moment. He met the anger of the multitude with unflinching pride, he brought the insolent to their senses, and encouraged the faint hearted to self-confidence. It was a democracy in appearance only, in deed and truth it was the rule of an individual man, of the greatest of the great, over the people.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[49] At the same time a plague was raging in Rome. The pestilence is believed to have been carried along the Carthaginian trade routes. It brought the population of Athens from 100,000 down below 80,000.
[50] According to Grote, “Diodorus mentions similar distresses in the Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible epidemic with which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, respecting the epidemic at Syracuse when it was besieged by Marcellus and the Romans.”
[51] Bury[d] says: “He was found guilty of ‘theft’ to the trifling amount of five talents; the verdict was a virtual acquittal, though he had to pay a fine of ten times the amount.” But as an Attic talent was equal to £200 or $1000, the theft of five talents was hardly trifling and a fine of £10,000 or $50,000 was a rather unsatisfactory “acquittal.”
[52] “Pericles,” says Plutarch,[h] “undoubtedly deserved admiration, not only for the candour and moderation which he ever retained, amidst the distractions of business and the rage of his enemies, but for that noble sentiment which led him to think it his most excellent attainment, never to have given way to envy or anger, notwithstanding the greatness of his power, nor to have nourished an implacable hatred against his greatest foe. In my opinion, this one thing, I mean his mild and dispassionate behaviour, his unblemished integrity and irreproachable conduct during his whole administration, makes his appellation of Olympius, which would otherwise be vain and absurd, no longer exceptionable; nay, gives it a propriety.”
