was renowned for his valor and patriotism. Nor was his father-in-law, Clisthenes, less celebrated, for it was he who expelled the family of Pisistratus the tyrant, and established. a form of government which was famous throughout Greece for its wisdom and liberality. The most illustrious philosophers of his time were his instructors. His preceptor in the natural sciences was Anaxagoras; he received lessons on the harp from Damon; from Pythoclydes he received lessons on other instruments, and he attended the lectures of Zeno of Elea.* Each of these was at the head of his profession, and all acknowledged that they had no more brilliant pupil than Pericles. Nor have we any reason to think that they were unduly partial in their estimate; on the contrary, the testimony of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Xenophon prove the contrary, and be it remembered that all these illustrious thinkers were his contemporaries.

We have evidence of his wisdom and sagacity in a thousand forms. It seems that anterior to his time the Athenians regarded eclipses as indications of the Divine displeasure. There were, indeed, philosophers who knew better; but they knew also how dangerous it was to put forward views which conflicted with the tenets of the popular religion, while the people had all power in their own hands. Thus it was that Anaxagoras taught Pericles that not only eclipses, but all other phenomena which were wont to create terror, were the results of natural causes; whereas, had he made the same statements directly to the people, it was more than probable that he would have had to pay the penalty with his life.

Even Pericles, unbounded as was his influence over the masses, found it necessary to wait for a suitable opportunity before he attempted to question the truth of their faith. The best he could have desired for this purpose occurred at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Plutarch tells us that he manned a hundred and fifty ships, on which he embarked great numbers of select horse and foot, and was preparing to set sail. The Athenians conceived good hopes, and the enemy no less dreaded so great an armament. The whole fleet was in readiness, and Pericles on board of his own galley, when there appeared an eclipse of the sun. The

The Zeno alluded to here is not the founder of the sect of stoics, but quite as great a philosopher, and probably a greater man. He it was who sacrificed his life in the cause of liberty, by attempting to rid the world of a tyrantPeriander of Corinth-who caused him to be pounded to death in a mortar.

sudden darkness was looked upon as an unfavorable omen, and threw them into the greatest consternation. Pericles observing that the pilot was astonished and perplexed, took his cloak, and having covered his eyes with it, asked him, "If he found anything terrible in that, or considered it as a sad presage." Upon his answering in the negative, he added, "Where is the difference between this and the other, except that something bigger than a cloak causes the eclipse?" This simple explanation, because given at the proper time and place, had the desired effect.

Other superstitions of an equally serious character were disposed of in a manner not less simple or less effectual. One instance more will be sufficient for our present purpose. We are told that a ram's head with only one horn was brought to Pericles from one of his farms; those who took it regarding it as a fearful prognostic. They had Lampo the soothsayer immediately sent for. We are informed that when he saw that the horn grew thick and strong out of the middle of the forehead, he declared that the two parties in the state, namely, those of Thucydides and Pericles, would unite, and invest the whole power in him with whom the prodigy was found. Pericles had no faith in any such presage, but as it was made to apply to himself, he preferred to have it explained by another.

All capable of judging had implicit confidence in the opinion of Anaxagoras, the naturalist and philosopher, who was accordingly called upon to examine the monster. His course was to dissect the head and show that the brain did not fill the whole cavity, but had contracted itself into an oval form, and pointed directly to that part of the skull whence the horn took its rise.

At first view it might not seem, even at the present day, that superstitions like those we have mentioned could be productive of much harm, but the intelligent student of history knows the reverse. Although the Greeks were beyond question the most enlightened people of their time, none suffered more from attributing natural phenomena to supernatural agency. As an example, we may mention what happened to the Athenian fleet in the harbor of Syracuse. It was ready

*The course subsequently pursued towards Pericles and his friends shows how dangerous it was to meddle with the prejudices or traditional faith of the people. Towards the close of his long, honorable, and active life, Diopithes procured a decree that those who introduced new opinions about celestial appearances, should be tried before an assembly of the people. This charge was levelled, as Plutarch tells us, first at Anaxagoras, and through him at Pericles.

to sail in order to retire, but General Nicias, the commander, seeing that the moon was eclipsed, resolved not to put to sea until it was over. This he thought a wise precaution, but it proved the ruin of his fleet. "Nicias and all the rest were struck with a great panic, either through ignorance or superstition," says Plutarch. "As for an eclipse of the sun, which happens at the conjunction, even the common people had some idea of its being caused by the interposition of the moon; but they could not easily form a conception by the interposition of what body the moon, when at the full, should suddenly lose her light and assume such a variety of colors. They looked upon it, therefore, as a strange and preternatural phenomenon-a sign by which the gods announced some great calamity.'

It may well seem strange, almost incredible, that an Athenian general in the time of Pericles should be prevented from setting sail by an eclipse of the moon; but be it remembered, that it was the people who conferred all public offices, and that the people in any country seldom reason-still more seldom do they elect men for public offices according to their qualifications. There are none of our readers who do not remember to have seen illustrations of this in their own time. How often have the worst men been elected in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, in preference to the best, the most ignorant in preference to the most intelligent? If it be urged that the masses of the present day are intelligent enough to understand that there is nothing frightful in an eclipse either of the sun or moon, it may as forcibly be replied that we of the present day have the benefit of the printing press. The Athenians had no daily or weekly journals filled with news from all parts of the world, or containing accounts of discoveries and inventions.

No man ever lived that understood the people in this respect better than Pericles. All his contemporaries who give any account of his character, concur in the statement that he carefully concealed his talents as well as his learning from the people; and their views have been adopted by the most careful and reliable of his more recent biographers. We are told by Plutarch that in his youth he stood in great fear of the people, because he knew how badly they are apt to reason when they do so at all. It seems that his countenance had some resemblance to that of Pisistratus the tyrant, and

*Life of Nicias.

"he perceived that old men were much struck by a further resemblance in the sweetness of his voice, the volubility of his tongue, and the roundness of his periods. As he was moreover of a noble family and opulent fortune, and his friends were the most considerable men in the state, he dreaded the ban of ostracism, and therefore intermeddled not with state affairs, but behaved with great courage and intrepidity in the field."

He knew that courage was pleasing to all classes; that it became the statesman and the orator no less than the soldier, and accordingly, far from concealing it, he allowed no suitable opportunity to pass without displaying it; although in no boastful spirit, for he was far too great a man to be a braggart.

Pericles was still more distinguished, if possible, for his eloquence than for his courage. He was universally regarded as the most powerful orator of his time. The most competent of all human judges have awarded him this distinction. We shall presently see what was the estimate of Plato, which, however, was not higher than that of Aristotle and Xenophon. But how did he deserve the applause of such illustrious judges? Let no one think that that magical power of his eloquence which has led Quintilian and others to say that the goddess of persuasion rested on his lips,† was solely the gift of nature; it was, to a great extent, the result of hard study and research, commenced in early youth and continued through life. First he made himself acquainted, as far as it was possible, with all that was great and noble in science and art; then, as we are told by Plutarch, "desiring to make his language a proper vehicle for his sublime sentiments, and to speak in a manner that became the dignity of his life, he availed himself greatly of what he had learned from Anaxagoras, adorning his eloquence with the rich colors of philosophy. Hence he is said to have gained the surname

Plutarch in Vita.

"Why need I dwell on the sweetness of Xenophon, sweetness which is unaffected, but which no affectation can attain? so that even the Graces themselves are said to have formed his style, and the testimony of the old comedy concerning Pericles, may justly be applied to him, that the goddess of persuasion was seated on his lips." (L. x. c. 1.) Pliny quotes the passage of Eupolis here al luded to, in the twentieth epistle of his first book; and as the Greek student may be curious to see it, we subjoin it in the original, premising, for the satisfaction of those unacquainted with that language, that the sense of it is contained in the extract just quoted from Quintilian :

Πρὸς δέ γ' αὖ τούτῳ τάχ' ἡ
Πειθώ τις ἐπεκά θητο τοῖοι χείλεοιν.
Οὕτως ἐχήλει και μόνος των βητόρων,
Τὸ χέντρον ἐγχατέλιπε τοις ά χρεωμένοις.

of Olympius, though some will have it to have been from the edifices with which he adorned the city, and others from his high authority in peace and war."

Need we say that any of the three reasons assigned would have proved him a great man; for neither his eloquence nor his statesmanship contributed more to his renown, or gave him a higher claim to the gratitude of posterity, than those wonderful structures to which Plutarch alludes, and which, even in their ruined state at the present day, still continue to command universal admiration as the most perfect specimens of sculpture that any age, ancient or modern, has produced? But none of the many noble gifts with which nature and education had adorned his mind, is better attested than his eloquence. "They tell us," says Plutarch, "that in his harangues he thundered and lightened, and that his tongue was armed with thunder. Thucydides, the son of Milesius, is said to have given a pleasant account of the force of his eloquence. Thucydides was a great and respectable man, who for a long time opposed the measures of Pericles; and when Archidamus, one of the kings of Lacedæmon, asked him, "Which was the best wrestler, Pericles or he," he answered, "When I throw him, he says he was never down, and he persuades the very spectators to believe so."

There are none who give any account of his oratory, who do not pay him a similar tribute. In all the sublime pages of Plato there is scarcely a finer passage than that in which he gives Socrates' estimate of the eloquence of Pericles, and from which we extract a sentence or two: "All the great arts," says Socrates, "require a subtle and speculative research into the law of nature, for that loftiness of thought and perfect mastery over every subject seems to be derived from some such source as this, which Pericles possessed in addition to a great natural genius. For meeting, I think, with Anaxagoras, who was a person of this kind, and being filled with speculative research and having arrived at the nature of intelligence and want of intelligence, about which Anaxagoras made that long discourse, he drew from thence to the art of speaking whatever would contribute to its advantage."*

Thucydides tells us that whenever the Athenians evinced a disposition to be rash and violent, he excited in their minds wholesome fears, and that whenever, on the contrary, they were inclined to be timid, his magic eloquence inspired them with the

Plato in Phædrus.