Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

XXX. It is said, that when an embassy arrived at Athens from Lacedaemon to treat upon these matters, Perikles argued that there was a law which forbade the tablet, on which the decree against the Megarians was written, to be taken down. "Then," said Polyalkes, one of the ambassadors, "do not take it down, but turn it with its face to the wall; for there is no law against that!"

Clever as this retort was, it had no effect on Perikles. He had, it seems, some private spite at the Megarians, though the ground of quarrel which he put publicly forward was that the Megarians had applied to their own use some of the sacred ground; and he passed a decree for a herald to be sent to the Megarians, and then to go on to the Lacedaemonians to complain of their conduct. This decree of Perikles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the herald, Anthemokritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athens should wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice; that any Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year; and that Anthemokritus should be buried near the city gate leading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.

Now, the Megarians say that they were not to blame for the murder of Anthemokritus, and lay it upon Perikles and Aspasia, quoting the hackneyed rhymes from the 'Acharnians,' of Aristophanes:

XXXI. How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers agree in throwing on Perikles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree. Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation, saying that the demand was merely made in order to try him, and that any concessions would have been regarded as a sign of weakness; while others say that he treated the Lacedaemonians so cavalierly through pride and a desire to show his own strength. But the worst motive of all, and that to which most men attribute his conduct, was as follows: Pheidias, the sculptor, was, as we have related, entrusted with the task of producing the statue of the tutelary goddess of Athens. His intimacy with Perikles, with whom he had great influence, gained for him many enemies, who, wishing to experiment on the temper of the people towards Perikles himself, bribed Menon, one of Pheidias's fellow–workmen, to seat himself in the market–place as a suppliant who begged that he might receive protection while he denounced and prosecuted Pheidias. The people took this man under its protection, and Pheidias was prosecuted before the Senate. The alleged charges of theft were not proved, for Pheidias, by the advice of Perikles, had originally fashioned the golden part of the statue in such a manner that it could all be taken off and weighed, and this Perikles bade the prosecutor do on this occasion. But the glory which Pheidias obtained by the reality of his work made him an object of envy and hatred, especially when in his sculpture of the battle with the Amazons on the shield of the goddess he introduced his own portrait as a bald–headed old man lifting a great stone with both hands, and also a very fine representation of Perikles, fighting with an Amazon. The position of the hand, which was holding a spear before the face of Perikles, was ingeniously devised as if to conceal the portrait, which, nevertheless, could plainly be seen on either side of it. For this, Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles. At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to provide for the wretch's safety.

XXXII. About the same time Aspasia was prosecuted for impiety, at the suit of Hermippus, the comic playwright, who moreover accused her of harbouring free–born Athenian ladies, with whom Perikles carried on intrigues. Also Diopeithes proposed a decree, that prosecutions should be instituted against all persons who disbelieved in religion, and held theories of their own about heavenly phenomena. This was aimed at Perikles through the philosopher Anaxagoras. As the people adopted this decree, and eagerly listened to these slanderous accusations, another decree was carried by Drakontides, that Perikles should lay the accounts of his dealings with the public revenue before the Prytanes, and that the judges should carry their suffrage from the altar in the Acropolis, and go and determine the cause in the city. At the motion of Hagnon this part of the decree was reversed, but he succeeded in having the action conducted before fifteen hundred judges, in a form of trial which one might call either one for theft, or taking of bribes, or for public wrong–doing. Aspasia was acquitted, quite contrary to justice, according to Aeschines, because Perikles shed tears and made a personal appeal to the judges on her behalf. He feared that Anaxagoras would be convicted, and sent him out of the city before his trial commenced. And now, as he had become unpopular by means of Pheidias, he at once blew the war into a flame, hoping to put an end to these prosecutions, and to restore his own personal ascendancy by involving the State in important and dangerous crises, in which it would have to rely for guidance upon himself alone.

These are the causes which are assigned for his refusal to permit the Athenians to make any concession to the Lacedaemonians, but the real history of the transaction will never be known.

XXXIII. Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from power they would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they bade them, "drive forth the accursed thing," alluding to Perikles's descent from the Alkmaeonidae by his mother's side, as we are told by Thucydides the historian. But this attempt had just the contrary effect to that which they intended; for, instead of suspicion and dislike, Perikles met with much greater honour and respect from his countrymen than before, because they saw that he was an object of especial dislike to the enemy. For this reason, before the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, invaded Attica, he warned the Athenians that if Archidamus, when he laid waste everything else, spared his own private estate because of the friendly private relations existing between them, or in order to give his personal enemies a ground for impeaching him, that he should give both the land and the farm buildings upon it to the State.

The Lacedaemonians invaded Attica with a great host of their own troops and those of their allies, led by Archidamus, their king. They proceeded, ravaging the country as they went, as far as Acharnae (close to Athens), where they encamped, imagining that the Athenians would never endure to see them there, but would be driven by pride and shame to come out and fight them. However, Perikles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian [18] The Dorians of Boeotia and Peloponnesus were accounted the best infantry soldiers of Greece. heavy–armed troops, and so he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of a State are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they would force him to act against his better judgment, but, just as the captain of a ship, when a storm comes on at sea, places everything in the best trim to meet it, and trusting to his own skill and seamanship, disregarding the tears and entreaties of the sea–sick and terrified passengers; so did Perikles shut the gates of Athens, place sufficient forces to ensure the safety of the city at all points, and calmly carry out his own policy, taking little heed of the noisy grumblings of the discontented. Many of his friends besought him to attack, many of his enemies threatened him and abused him, and many songs and offensive jests were written about him, speaking of him as a coward, and one who was betraying the city to its enemies. Kleon too attacked him, using the anger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personal popularity, as we see from the following lines of Hermippus: