THE

LIFE OF PERICLES.

When Caesar happened to see some strangers at Rome carrying young dogs and monkeys in their arms, and fondly caressing them, he asked,—'• Whether the women in their country never bore any children?" thus reproving, with a proper severity, those who lavish upon brutes that natural tenderness which is due only to mankind. In the same manner we must condemn those who employ that curiosity and love of knowledge, which nature has implanted in the human soul, upon low and worthless objects, while they neglect such as are , excellent and useful. Our senses, indeed, by an effect almost mechanical, are passive to the impression of outward objects, whether agreeable or offensive; but the mind, possessed^ of a self-directing power, may turn its attention to whatever it thinks proper. It should, therefore, be employed in the most useful pursuits, not barely in contemplation, hut in such contemplation as may nourish its faculties; for as that colour is best suited to the eye, which by its beauty and agreeableness at the same time both refreshes and strengthens the sight, so the application of the mind should be directed to those subjects which, through the channel of pleasure, may lead us to our proper happiness. Such are the works of virtue. The very description of these inspires us with emulation, and a strong desire to imitate them; whereas, in other things, admiration does not always lead us to imitate what we admire, but, on the contrary, while we are charmed with the work, we often despise the workman. Thus we are pleased with perfumes and purple, while dyers and perfumers appear to us in the light of mean mechanics.

Antisthenes.* therefore, when he was told that Ismenias played excellently upon the flute, answered properly enough, " Then he is good for nothing else, otherwise he would not have played so well." Such also was Philip's saying to his son, when, at a certain entertainment he sang in a very agreea

• Antisthenes was a disciple of Socrates, and founder of the sect of the Cynics.

ble and skilful manner, "Are you not ashamed to sing so well?" It is enough for a prince to bestow a vacant hour up on hearing others sing; and he does the Muses sufficient ho nour, if he attends the performances of those who excel in their arts.

If a man applies himself to servile or mechanic employments, his industry in those things is a proof of his inattention to nobler studies. No young man of noble birth, or li beral sentiments, from seeing the Jupiter at Pisa, would de sire to be Phidias, or from the sight of the Juno at Argos, to be Polycletus; or Anacreon, or Philemon, or Archilochus, though delighted with their poems;* for though a work may be agreeable, yet esteem of the author is not the necessary consequence. We may, therefore, conclude, that things of this kind, which excite not a spirit of emulation, nor produce any strong impulse or desire to imitate them, are of little use to the beholders. But virtue has this peculiar property, that at the same time that we admire her conduct, we long to copy the example. The goods of fortune we wish to enjoy, virtue we desire to practise; the former we are glad to receive from others, the latter we are ambitious that others should receive from us. The beauty of goodness has an attractive power; it kindles in us at once an active principle; it forms our manners, and influences our desires, not only when represented in a living example, but even in an historical description.

For this reason, we chose to proceed in writing the lives of great men, and have composed this tenth book, which contains, the life of Pericles, and that of Fabius Maximus, who carried on the war against Hannibal; men who resembled each other in many virtues, particularly in justice and moderation, and who effectually served their respective commonwealths, by patiently enduring the injuries and capricious treatment they received from their colleagues and their countrymen. Whether we are right in our judgment or not, will be easy to see in the work itself.

Pericles was of the tribe of Acamantis, and of the ward of Cholargia. His family was one of the most considerable in Athens, both by the father and mother's side. His father Xanthippus, who defeated the king of Persia's generals at Mycale, married Agariste, the niece of Clisthenes, who ex

• This seems to be somewhat inconsistent with that respect and esteem in which the noble arts of poetry and sculpture were held in ancient Greece and Rome, and with that admiration which the proficients in those arts always obtain among the people. But there was still a kind of jealousy between the poets and philosophers; and our philosophical biographer shows pretty clearly, by the Platonic parade of this introduction, that he would magnify the latter at the expense of the former.

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pelled the family of Pisistratus, abolished the tyranny, enacted laws, and established a form of government, tempered in such a manner as tended to unanimity among the people, and the safety of the state. She dreamed that she was delivered of a lion, and a few days after brought forth Pericles. His person in other respects was well turned, but his head was disproportionably long. For this reason almost all his statues nave the head covered with a helmet, the statuaries choosing, I suppose, to hide that defect . But the Athenian poets call him Schinocephalus, or onion-head, for the word schinos is sometimes used instead of scilla, a sea-onion. Cratinus, the comic writer, in his play called Chirones, has this passage:—

Faction received old Time to her embraces;

Hence came a tyrant-spawn, on earth called Pericles,

In heaven the head.compellcr.

And again, in his Nemesis, he thus addresses him;—

Come, blessed Jove,* the high and mighty head,
The friend of hospitality!

And Tclcclides says,—

Now, in a maze of thought, he ruminates
On strange expedients, while his head, depressed
With its own weight, sinks on his knees; and now
From the vast caverns of his brain burst forth
Storms and fierce thunders.

And Eupolis, in his Demi, asking news of all the ereat orators, whom he represented as ascending from the shades below, when Pericles comes up at last, cries out,—

Head of the tribes that haunt those spacious realms,
Does he ascend'

Most writers agree, that the master who taught him music was called Damon, the first syllable of whose name, they tell tis, is to be pronounced short; but Aristotle informs us, that he learned that art of Pythoclides. As for Damon, he seems to have been a politician, who under the pretence of teaching music, concealed his great abilities from the vulgar; and he attended Pericles as his tutor and assistant in politics, in the same manner as a master of the gymnastic art attends a young man to fit him for the ring. However, Damon's giving lessons upon the harp was discovered to be a mere pretext, and, as a busy politician, and friend to tyranny, he was banished by the ostracism. Nor was he spared by the comic poets. One of them named Plato, introduces a person addressing him thus;—

Inform me, Damon, first, does fame say true,
And wast thou really Pericles's Chiron?*

Pericles also attended the lectures of Zeno of Elea,t who, in natural philosophy, was a follower of Parmenides, and who, by much practice in the art of disputing, had learned to confound and silence all his opponents, as Timon the Phlasian declares in these verses:—

Have not you heard of Zeno's mighty powers,

Who could change sides, yet changing triumph'd still

In the tongue's wars?

But the philosopher with whom he was most intimately acquainted, who gave him that force and sublimity of sentiment superior to all the demagogues, who, in short, formed him to that admirable dignity of manners, was Anaxagoras the Clazomenian. This was he whom the people of those times called nous, or intelligence, either in admiration of his great understanding and knowledge of the works of nature, or because he was the first who clearly proved that the universe owed its formation neither to chance nor necessity, but to a pure and unmixed mind, who separated the homogeneous parts from the other with which they were confounded.

Charmed with the company of this philosopher, and instructed by him in the sublimest sciences, Pericles acquired not only an elevation of sentiment, and a loftiness and purity of style, far removed from the low expression of the vulgar, but like wi§e a gravity of countenance which relaxed not into laughter, a firm and even tone of voice, an easy deportment, and a decency of dress, which no vehemence of speaking ever put into disorder. These things, and others of the like nature, excited admiration in all that saw him.

Such was his conduct, when a vile and abandoned fellow loaded him a whole day with reproaches and abuse, he bore it with patience and silence, and continued in public for the despatch of some urgent affairs. In the evening he walked softly home, this impudent wretch following, and insulting him all the way with the most scurrilous language; and as it was dark when he came*lo his own door, he ordered one of his servants to take a torch and light the man home. The poet Ion, however, says he was proud and supercilious in conversation, and that there was a great deal of vanity and contempt of others mixed with his dignity of manner; on the other hand, he highly extols the civility, complaisance, and politeness of Cimon. - But to take no farther notice of Ion, who, perhaps, would not have any great excellence appear without a mixture of something satirical, as it was in the ancient tragedy;* Zeno desired those that called the gravity of Pericles pride and arrogance, to be proud the same way;'telling them, the very acting of an excellent part might insensibly produce a love and real imitation of it.

These were not the only advantages which Pericles gained by conversing with Anaxagoras. From him he learned to overcome those terrors which the various phenomena of the heavens raise in those who know not their causes, and who entertain a tormenting fear of the gods by reason of that ignorance. Nor is there any cure for it but the study of nature, which, instead of the frightful extravagances of superstition, implants in us a sober piety, supported by a rational hope.

We are told, there was brougnt to Pericles, from one of his farms, a ram's head with only one horn; and Lampo the* soothsayer, observing that the horn grew strong and firm out of the middle of the forehead, declared, that the two parties in the state, namely, those of Thucydides and Pericles, would unite,