There is, I imagine, no reason why both the prophet and the natural philosopher should not have been right, the one discovering the cause, and the other the meaning. The one considered why the horn grew so, and for what reason; the other declared what it meant by growing so, and for what end it took place. Those who say that when the cause of a portent is found out the portent is explained away, do not reflect that the same reasoning which explains away heavenly portents would also put an end to the meaning of the conventional signals used by mankind. The ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning. But perhaps all this belongs to another subject.
VII. Perikles when young greatly feared the people. He had a certain personal likeness to the despot Peisistratus; and as his own voice was sweet, and he was ready and fluent in speech, old men who had known Peisistratus were struck by his resemblance to him. He was also rich, of noble birth, and had powerful friends, so that he feared he might be banished by ostracism, and consequently held aloof from politics, but proved himself a brave and daring soldier in the wars. But when Aristeides was dead, Themistokles banished, and Kimon generally absent on distant campaigns, Perikles engaged in public affairs, taking the popular side, that of the poor and many against that of the rich and few, quite contrary to his own feelings, which were entirely aristocratic. He feared, it seems, that he might be suspected of a design to make himself despot, and seeing that Kimon took the side of the nobility, and was much beloved by them, he betook himself to the people, as a means of obtaining safety for himself, and a strong party to combat that of Kimon. He immediately altered his mode of life; was never seen in any street except that which led to the market–place and the national assembly, and declined all invitations to dinner and such like social gatherings, so utterly that during the whole of his long political life he never dined with one of his friends, except when his first cousin, Euryptolemus, was married. On this occasion he sat at table till the libations were poured, upon which he at once got up and went away. For solemnity is wont to unbend at festive gatherings, and a majestic demeanour is hard to keep up when one is in familiar intercourse with others. True virtue, indeed, appears more glorious the more it is seen, and a really good man's life is never so much admired by the outside world as by his own intimate friends. But Perikles feared to make himself too common even with the people, and only addressed them after long intervals—not speaking upon every subject, and, not constantly addressing them, but, as Kritolaus says, keeping himself like the Salaminian trireme for great crises, and allowing his friends and the other orators to manage matters of less moment. One of these friends is said to have been Ephialtes, who destroyed the power of the Council of the Areopagus, "pouring out," as Plato, the comic poet, said, "a full and unmixed draught of liberty for the citizens," under the influence of which the poets of the time said that the Athenian people
VIII. Wishing to adopt a style of speaking consonant with his haughty manner and lofty spirit, Perikles made free use of the instrument which Anaxagoras as it were put into his hand, and often tinged his oratory with natural philosophy. He far surpassed all others by using this "lofty intelligence and power of universal consummation," as the divine Plato calls it;[17] in addition to his natural advantages, adorning his oratory with apt illustrations drawn from physical science.
For this reason some think that he was nicknamed the Olympian; though some refer this to his improvement of the city by new and beautiful buildings, and others from his power both as a politician and a general. It is not by any means unlikely that these causes all combined to produce the name. Yet the comedies of that time, when they allude to him, either in jest or earnest, always appear to think that this name was given him because of his manner of speaking, as they speak of him as "thundering and lightening," and "rolling fateful thunders from his tongue." A saying of Thucydides, the son of Melesias, has been preserved, which jestingly testifies to the power of Perikles's eloquence. Thucydides was the leader of the conservative party, and for a long time struggled to hold his own against Perikles in debate. One day Archidamus, the King of Sparta, asked him whether he or Perikles was the best wrestler. "When I throw him in wrestling," Thucydides answered, "he beats me by proving that he never was down, and making the spectators believe him." For all this Perikles was very cautious about his words, and whenever he ascended the tribune to speak, used first to pray to the gods that nothing unfitted for the present occasion might fall from his lips. He left no writings, except the measures which he brought forward, and very few of his sayings are recorded. One of these was, that he called Aegina "the eyesore of the Peiraeus," and that "he saw war coming upon Athens from Peloponnesus." Stesimbrotus tells us that when he was pronouncing a public funeral oration over those who fell in Samos, he said that they had become immortal, even as the gods: for we do not see the gods, but we conceive them to be immortal by the respect which we pay them, and the blessings which we receive from them; and the same is the case with those who die for their country.
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.