 Section 0 of The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. Edited by Charles F. Horn, Rosethood Johnson, and John Rudd. Section 0. An Outline Narrative. Tracing briefly the causes, connections, and consequences of The Great Events from the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era, Charles F. Horn, Ph.D., Earth's upward struggle has been baffled by so many stumbles that critics have not been lacking to suggest that we do not advance at all, but only swing in circles, like a squirrel in its cage. Certain it is that each ancient civilization seemed to bear in itself the seeds of its own destruction. Yet it may be held with equal truth that each new power rising above the ruins of the last, held something nobler, was born upward by some truth its rival could not reach. At no period is this more evident than in the five centuries immediately preceding the Christian Era, Persia, Greece, Carthage, Rome, each in turn, with some justice, proclaimed Lord of the World. Each in turn felt the impulse of her glory, and advanced rapidly in culture and knowledge of the arts, and each in turn succumbed to the temptations that beset unlimited success. They degenerated not only in physical strength, but in moral honesty. Let us recognize, however, that the term world ruler, as applied to even the greatest of these nations, has but a restricted sense, when the Persian monarch called himself Lord of the Sun and Moon. He only meant in a figurative way that he was acquainted with no other king so powerful as himself, that beyond his own dominions he heard only of feeble colonies, and beyond those the wilderness. Alexander, when he sighed for more worlds to conquer, had in reality made himself Lord of less than a quarter of Asia, and of about one sixtieth part of Europe. No man and no nation has ever yet been entrusted with the government of the entire globe. None has proved sufficiently fitted for the giant task. Such empire has been, as it were, but in an experiment, and beyond the borderline of seas and deserts which ringed each boastful conqueror, there was always other races developing along slower, and it may be sure, lines. In those old days our world was in truth too big for conquest. These marched on foot. Provisions could not be carried in any quantity unless a general clung to the seashore and depended on his ships. What Alexander might with more truth have sighed for was some modern means of swift transportation, possessed of which he might still have enjoyed many interesting bloody battles in more distant lands. The Development of the Greeks Taking the idea world power, in the restricted sense suggested, Persia lost it to Greece at Salamis. As the Asiatic hordes fled behind their panic-stricken king, the Greeks, looking ground their limited horizon, could see no power that might vie with them. The idea of pressing home their success and overthrowing the entire unwieldy Persian empire was at once conceived. But the Greeks were of all races, least like to weld earth into one dominion. They could not even unite among themselves. In short, it cannot be too emphatically pointed out that the work of Greece was not to consolidate, but to separate, to teach the value of each individual man. Asia had made monarchies in plenty. King after king had passed in splendid glittering pomp across her plains, circled by a crowd of obsequious courtiers, trampling on a nameless multitude of slaves. It has been well said that a democracy is the strongest government for defense, the weakest for attack. Every little Greek city clung jealously to its own freedom and to its equally obvious right to dominate its neighbors. The supreme danger of the Persian invasion united them for a moment, but as soon as safety was assured they recommended their bickering. Sparta, with her record of ancient leadership, Athens, with her new one glory against the common foe, each tried to draw the other cities in her train. There was no one man who could dominate them all and consecrate their strength against the enemy. So, for a time, Persia continued to exist. She even, by degrees, regained something of her former influence over the divided cities. Among these Athens held the foremost rank. She was, as we have previously seen, far more truly representative of the Greek spirit than her rival. Sparta was aristocratic and conservative. Athens, democratic and progressive. The genius of her leaders gathered the lesser towns into a great naval league in which she grew ever more powerful. Her allies sank to be dependent on unwilling vassals, forced to contribute large sums to the treasury of their overlord. This was the age of Pericles. As Athens became wealthy, her citizens became cultured, statues, temples, theatres made the city beautiful, dramatists, orators and poets made her intellectually renowned, a marvelous outburst, this of Athens, displaying for the first time in history the full capacity of the human mind. Had there been similar flowerings of genius amid forgotten Asiatic times? One doubts it. Doubts if such brilliancy could ever anywhere have passed, and left no clearer record of its triumphs. Amid such splendor, it seems capsious to point out the flaw. Yet Athenian and all Greek civilization did ultimately decline. It represented intellectual, but not moral, culture. The Greeks delighted intensely in the purely physical life about them. They had small conception of anything beyond. To enjoy, to be successful, that was all their goal. The means scarce counted. The Athenians called Aristides the just, but so little did they honor his high rectitude that they banished him for a decade. His title, where it may have been his insistence on the subject, bored them. His rival, Themistocles, was more suited to their taste, a clever scamp who must always be dealing with both sides in every quarrel and outwitting both. Athens was driven to banish him also, at last, at his two-flagrant treachery. But he was not dismissed with the scathing scorn our modern age would heap upon a trader. He was sent regretfully, as one turns from a charming but too persistently lawless friend. The banishment was only for ten years, and he had his nest already prepared with the Persian king. If you would understand the Greek spirit in its fullest perfection, study Themistocles. Rampant individualism, seeking personal pleasure, clamorous for the admiration of its fellows, but not restrained from secret falsity by any strong moral sense. That was what the Greeks developed in the end. Neither must Athens be regarded as a democracy in the modern sense. She was only so by contrast with Persia or with Sparta. Not every man in the beautiful city voted or enjoyed the riches that flowed into her coffers and could thus afford free from pecuniary care to devote himself to art. Athens probably had never more than thirty thousand citizens. The rest of the adult male population, vastly outnumbering these, were slaves, or foreigners attracted by the city's splendor. But those thirty thousand were certainly men. There were giants in those days. One sometimes stands in wonder at their boldness. What all Greece could not do, what Persia had completely failed in, they undertook. Athens alone should conquer the world. By force of arms they would found an empire of intellect. They fought Persia and Sparta both at once. The Greeks swept their city, yet they would not yield. Their own subject allies turned against them. And they fought those too. They sent fleets and armies against Syracuse, the mighty power of the West. It was Athens against all mankind. She was unequal to the task. Superbly unequal to it. The destruction of her army at Syracuse was only the foremost of a series of inevitable disasters, which left her helpless. After that, Sparta and then Tebas became a leading city of Greece. Athens slowly regained her fighting strength, her intellectual supremacy she had not lost. Socrates, greatest of her sons, endeavored to teach a morality higher than the earth had yet received, higher than his contemporaries could grasp. So gave to thought a scientific basis. Then Macedonia, a border kingdom of ancient kinship to the Greeks, but not recognized as belonging among them, began to uptrude herself in their affairs, and at length won that leadership for which they had all contended. A hundred and fifty years had elapsed since the Greeks had stood united against Persia. During all that time their strength had been turned against themselves. Now at last the internecine wars were checked, and all the power of the sturdy race was directed by one man, Alexander, king of Macedon. Democracy had made the Greeks intellectually glorious, but politically weak. Monarchy rose from the ruin they had wrought. As though that ancient invasion of Xerces had been a crime of yesterday, Alexander proclaimed his intention of avenging it, and the Greeks applauded. They understood Persia now far better than in the elder days. They saw what a feeble mass the huge heterogeneous empire had become. Its people were slaves, its soldiers, mercenaries. The Greeks themselves had been hired to suppress more than one Persian rebellion, and to foment these also. They had learned the enormous advantage their stronger personality gave them against the masses of sheep-like Asiatics. So it was in holiday mood that they followed Alexander, and in schoolboy roughness that they trampled on the civilization of the East. In fact, it is worth noting that the most vigorous resistance they encountered was not from the Persians, but from the remnant of the Semites, the merchants of the Phoenician city of Tyre. In less than eight years, B.C. 331-323, Alexander overran the whole known world of the East, only stopping when, on the border of India, his soldiers broke into open revolt. Not against fighting, but against further wandering. If this invasion had been the mere outcome of one man's ambition, it might scarce be worth recording. But Alexander was only the topmost wave in the surging of a long, imminent, inevitable racial movement. Its effect upon civilization, upon the world, was incalculably vast. Alexander and his successes were city-builders, administrators. As such they spread Greek culture, the Greek idea of individualism, all over the world. How deep was the change made upon the imbruated Asiatics? We may perhaps question. Our own age has seen how much of education may be lavished upon an inferior race without materially altering the brute instincts within. The building up of the soul in man is not a matter of individuals, but of centuries. Yet in at least a superficial way Greek thought became the thought of all mankind. We may dismiss Alexander's savage conquests with a sigh of pity, but we cannot deny him recognition as a most potent teacher of the world. His empire did not last. It was in too obvious opposition to all that we have recognized as the Grecian spirit. At his death the same impulse seems to have stirred each one of his subordinates to snatch for himself a kingdom from the confusion. Instead of one there were soon three, four, and then a dozen semi-Grecian states in Asia. The Greek element in each grew very faint. From this time onward Asia takes a less prominent place in world affairs. Her ancient leadership in the march of civilization had long been yielded to the Greeks. Now her resemblance of military power disappeared as well. Only two further happenings in all Asia seem worth noting, down to the birth of Christ. One of these was the Tartar Conquest of China, an event which coalesced the Tartars, helped make them a nation. It was thus fraught with the most disastrous consequences for the Europe of the future. The other was the revolt of the Hebrews under Judas Maccabeus, against the Grecian rulers. This was a religious revolt, a religious war. There for the first time we find a people who will believe, who can believe, in no God but their own, who will die sooner than give worship to another. We approach the borders of an age where the spirit is more valued than the body, where the mental is stronger than the physical, where facts are dominated by ideas. Did Alexander, even at the moment of his greatest strength, directed his forces westward, instead of east, he would have found a different world, and encountered a sturdier resistance. He himself recognized this, and during his last years was gathering all the resources of his unwieldy empire to hurl them against Carthage, and against Italy. But the issue might have been, no man can say. Alexander's death ended forever the impossible attempt to unite his race. Once more and until the end the Grecian strength was wasted against itself. This gave opportunity to the growing powers of the West. Alexander is scarce gone ere we hear Carthage boasting that the Mediterranean is but a private lake in her possession. She rules all Western Africa and Spain, Sardinia and Corsica. She masters the Greek of Sicily, against whom Athens failed. Rome is compelled to sign treaties with her as an inferior. The Growth of Rome Rome was husbanding her strength. The little republic of B.C. 510 had grown much during the two centuries of Grecian plunder. Her people had become far better fitted for conquest than their eastern kinsmen. It is presumable that here too it was the difference of surroundings which had differentiated the race. The ancient Etrurian, non-Aryan civilization on which the Latins intruded, was apparently more advanced than their own. For centuries their utmost prowess scarce sufficed to maintain their independence. Thus it was not possible for them to become too self-satisfied, to stand afar off and look down on their neighbors with Grecian scorn. The ego was less prominently developed. The necessity of mutual dependence and united action was more deeply taught. Their records display less of brilliancy but more of patient persistency than those of Greece, less of spectacular individualism, more of truly patriotic self-suppression. In Rome, even more than in Sparta, the state was everything. During the early days men found their highest glory in making their city glorious. Their proudest boast was to be citizens of Rome. To trace the slow steps by which the tiny republic grew to be mistress of all Italy would take too long. She settled her internal difficulties as all such difficulties must be settled if the race is to progress. That is, she became more democratic. As the lower classes advanced in knowledge and intelligence, they insisted on a share of the government. They fought their way to it. They united Rome, mastered the other Latin cities, and admitted them to partnership in her power. She conquered the Etruscans and the Samnites. For a moment we find her almost overwhelmed by an inroad of the wild Celtic tribes from the forests of central Europe. But fortunately for her the other Italian states were equally crushed. It was weakness against weakness, and the Romans retained their foremost place. Not till more than a century later were they brought into serious conflict with the Greeks. In the year B.C. 280, Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who had won a temporary leadership over a portion of the Greek land, undertook the conquest of the West. Fifty years before, Alexander, with far greater power, might have been victorious over a feebler Rome. Pyrrhus failed completely. If the Romans had less dash and a less wide experience of varied warfare than his followers, they had far more of true heroic endurance. The Greeks had reached that stage of individual culture where they were much too selfishly intelligent to be willing to die in battle. Pyrrhus withdrew from Italy. Grecian brilliancy was helpless against Roman strength of union. Then came the far more serious contest between Rome and Carthage. Carthage was a Phoenician, a Semi-State, and hers was the last, the most gigantic struggle made by Semitism to recover its waning superiority, to dominate the ancient world. Three times in three tremendous wars did she and Rome put forth their utmost strength against each other. Hannibal perhaps, the greatest military genius who ever lived, fought upon the side of Carthage. At one time Rome seemed crushed, helpless before him. Yet in the end Rome won. It was not by the brilliancy of her commanders, not by the superiority of her resources. It was the grim, cool courage of the Aryan mind, showing strongest and calmest when face to face with ruin. Our modern philosophers, being Aryan, assurus that the victory of Carthage would have been an irretrievable disaster to mankind, that her falsity, her narrow selfishness, her bloody inhumanity would have stifled all progress, that her dominion would have been the tyranny of a few heartless masters over a world of tortured slaves. On the other hand Rome up to this point had certainly been a generous mistress to her subjects. She had left them peace and prosperity among themselves. She had given them as much political freedom as was consistent with her sovereignty. She had well nigh succeeded in welding all Italy into a Roman nation. It is noteworthy that the large majority of the Italian cities clung to her, even in the darkest straits to which she was reduced by Hannibal. Yet when the fall of her last great rival left Rome irresistible abroad, her methods changed. It is hard to see how even Carthaginians could have been more cruel, more grasping, more corrupt than the Roman rulers of the provinces. Having conquered the governments of the world, Rome had to face outbreak after outbreak from the unarmed, unsheltered masses of the people. Her barbarity drove them to mad despair. Servile wars, slave outbreaks, are dotted all over the last century of the Roman Republic. The good, if there was any good, that Roman dominion brought the world at that period, was the spreading of Greek culture across the western half of the world. As Rome mastered the Greek states one by one, their genius won a subtler triumph over the conqueror. Her generals recognized and admired a culture superior to their own. They carried off the statues of Greece for the adornment of their villas, and with equal eagerness they appropriated her manners and her thought, her literature and her gods. But this superficial culture could not save the Roman Republic from the dry rot that sapped her vitals from within. As a mere matter of numbers, the actual citizens of Rome, or even of the semi-Roman districts close around her, were too few to continue fighting over all the vast empire they controlled. The sturdy, peasant population of Italy slowly disappeared. The actual inhabitants of the capital came to consist of a few thousand vastly wealthy families who held all the power. A few thousand more of poorer citizens depended on the rich, and then a vast swarm of slaves and foreigners, feeders on the crumbs of the Roman table. In the battles against Carthage the mass of Rome's armies had consisted of her own citizens, or of allies closely united to them in blood and fortune. Her later victories were won by higher troops. Men gathered from every climb and every race. Roman generals still might lead them. Roman laws environed them. Roman gold employed them. Yet the fact remained that these armies lay the strength of the Republic no longer within her walls. No longer in the stout hearts of her citizens. Perhaps the world itself was slow in seeing this degeneration. The grouchy brothers tried to stem the tide, and they were slain. Sacrificed by the nation they sought to save. Cornelius Sola, the man who completed, and at the same time main-plain to all, the change that had been growing up. Seeing bitter grievances against his enemies in the capital he appealed for redress, not to the Roman Senate, not to the votes of the populace, but to the swords of the legions he commanded. Twice he marched his soldiers against Rome. He brushed aside the feeble resistance that was offered and entered the city like a conqueror. The blood of those who had opposed his wishes flowed in streams. Three thousand senators and knights the flower of the Roman aristocracy were slain at his nod. Of the common folk and of the Italians throughout the peninsula, the slaughter was immeasurable. And when his bloody vengeance was at last glutted, Sola ruled as an extravagant, conscious-less licentious dictator. Rome had found a fitting master. The struggle of individuals for supremacy. The Roman people, the mighty race who had defied a Hannibal at their gates, was clearly come to an end. Sola had provided the power of the Republic to be an empty shell. After his death, men used the empty forums a while, but the surviving aristocrats had learned their awful lesson. They put no further faith in the strength of the city. They watched the armies and the generals, they intrigued for the various commands. It was an exciting game. Life and fortune were the stakes they risked. The prize, the mastery of a helpless world, waiting to be plundered. Pompey and Caesar proved the ablest players. Pompey overthrew what was left of the Greek Asiatic kingdoms and returned to Rome the idol of his troops. All nigh is powerful has been Sola. Caesar, looking in his turn for a place to build up an army devoted to himself, selected Gaul and spent eight years in subduing and civilizing what wasn't a way the most important of all of Rome's conquests. In Gaul he came in contact with another, fresher Arian race. Rome received new soldiers for her legions, new brains fitted to understand and carry on the work of civilizing the world. When Caesar, turning away from Britain, marched these new-formed legions back against Rome, even as Sola had done, it was almost like another Gaulic invasion of the south. Pompey fled, he gathered his legions from Asia, and the world resounded once more to the clash of arms. This then was the third and final stage of the huge struggle for empire. War was still the business of the world. Rome had first defeated foreign nations, then she had to defeat the uprisings of the subject peoples. Now her chiefs, finding her exhausted, fought among themselves for the supreme power. armies of Asiatics, armies of Gauls, each claiming to represent Rome, battled over her helpless body. Caesar was victorious. But when the conquering power which had once belonged to the united nation became embodied in a single man, there was a new way by which it might be checked. The government of Rome, like that of the Greek and Asiatic tyrannies, became a despotism tempered by assassination, and Caesar was its foremost victim. His death did not stop the fascinating gamble for empire. It only added one more move to the possible complexities of the game. The lesser players had their chance, they intrigued and they fought. Egypt, the last remaining civilized state outside of Rome, was drawn into the whirlpool also. Cleopatra and Antony acted their reckless parts, and at length, out of the world-wide tumult, emerged Young Octavius, to assume his role as Augustus Caesar, acknowledged emperor of the world. Note however that the term world is still one of boast, not truth. Emperor over many men, Augustus was. But the powers of nature still shut many races safe beyond his mastery. The ocean bounded his dominion on the west, the deserts to the south and east, the German forests to the north. These last he did a say to conquer, but they proved beyond him. The wild German tribes, having no cities, which they must defend at any cost, could afford to flee or hide. Choosing their own time and place when they rose suddenly, smote the legions of Augustus, and melted into the wilderness again. Rome was checked out last. No civilized nation had been able to stand against her, but the wild tribes of the Germans and the Parthians did. Barbarism had still by far the largest portion of the world wherein to live and develop, and gather brain and brawn. Rome could not conquer the wilderness. End of Section Zero Section 1 of The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2 Edited by Charles F. Horne, Rosseter Johnson, and John Rudd. Institution and Fall of the Duchenne Virret in Rome, B.C. 450 by Henry G. Liddell When wars and pestilence had laid a heavy burden upon the Roman people, there appeared to have been a period in which internal commotions and civil strife were stilled, and the quarrels of patricians and plebeians gave way to temporary truce. On the inevitable renewal of the old struggle, the College of Tribunes adopted a measure favorable to the plebeians insofar as it provided means for checking the abuse of power on the part of consuls and punishing members of that class in connection with the prosecution of suits against them. The passage of this measure had the effect of reopening former conflicts, the patrician elements becoming greatly alarmed at what they regarded as a fresh encroachment upon their hereditary rights. The contest was long and bitter, each side either bringing forward or rejecting again and again the same measures or the same representatives. Finally compromises were made, and in the year B.C. 452, a commission of ten men called Dechemvirs constituting the Dechemvirret was chosen, consisting wholly of patricians who entered with great efficiency upon the discharge of legislative duties which resulted in the production of a new code. This was approved by the Senate and by the popular representatives, and was published in the form of ten copper plates or tables, which were affixed to the speaker's pulpit in the forum. Among the new Dechemvirs appointed in the year B.C. 450 were several plebeians, the first official representatives of the entire people who were chosen from that class. The patrician burgesses endeavored to rest independence from the plebs after the battle of Lake Regilles, and the latter, ruined by constant wars with the neighboring nations, being compelled to make good their losses by borrowing money from patrician creditors, and liable to become bondsmen in default of payment, at length deserted the city, and only returned on condition of being protected by tribunes of their own. They then, by the firmness of Pupillius Valero and Leitorius, obtained the right of electing these tribunes at their own assembly, the Comitia of the tribes. Finally the great consul Spurius Cassius endeavored to relieve the commonality by an agrarian law so as to better their condition permanently. The execution of the agrarian law was constantly evaded, but on the conquest of Anciam from the Volcians, in the year B.C. 468, a colony was sent thither, and this was one of the first examples of a distribution of public lands to poorer citizens, which answered two purposes, the improvement of their condition, and the defense of the place against the enemy. Nor did the tribunes, now made altogether independent of the patricians, fail to assert their power. One of the first persons who felt the force of their arm was the second Appius Claudius. This Sabine noble, following his father's example, had, after the departure of the Fabii, led the opposition to the Pupillian law. When he took the field against the Volcians, his soldiers would not fight, and the stern commander put to death every tenth man in his legions. For the acts of his consulship he was brought to trial by the tribunes M. Duilius and C. Cicinius. Seeing the conviction was certain, the proud patrician avoided humiliation by suicide. Nevertheless, the border wars still continued, and the plebeians suffered much. To the evils of debt and want were added about this time the horrors of pestilential disease, which visited the Roman territory several times at that period. In one year, B.C. 464, the two consuls, two of the four augers, and the Curio Maximus, who was the head of all the patricians, were swept off. A fact which implies the death of a vast number of less distinguished persons. The government was administered by the Pupillian ediles under the control of the senatorial in Aregis. The Volcians and Aquians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome, and the safety of the city must be attributed to the Latins and Hornici, not to the men of Rome. Meantime, the tribunes had in vain demanded a full execution of the agrarian law. But in the year B.C. 462, one of the sacred college, by name C. Terentilius Harsa, came forward with a bill, the object of which was to give the plebeians a sure footing in the state. This man perceived that as long as the consuls retained their almost despotic power and were elected by the influence of the patricians, this order had in its power to thwart all measures, even after they were passed, which tended to advance the interests of the plebeians. He therefore no longer demanded the execution of the agrarian law, but proposed that a commission of ten men, Decem Viri, should be appointed to draw up constitutional laws for regulating the future relations of the patricians and plebeians. The reform bill of Terentilius was, as might be supposed, vehemently resisted by the patrician burgesses. But the plebeians supported their champion no less warmly. For five consecutive years the same tribunes were re-elected, and in vain endeavored to carry the bill. This was the time which least fulfills the character which we have claimed for the Roman people, patience and temperance combined with firmness in their demands. To prevent the tribunes from carrying their law, the younger patricians thronged to the assemblies and interfered with all proceedings. Terentilius, they said, was endeavouring to confound all distinction between the orders. Some scenes occurred which seemed to show that both sides were prepared for civil war. In the year B.C. 460 the city was alarmed by hearing that the capital had been seized by a band of sabines and exiled Romans under the command of Juan Cardonius, who these exiles were is uncertain. But we know, by the legend of Sincenatus, that Queso Quintius, the son of that old hero, was an exile. It has been inferred, therefore, that he was among them, that the tribunes had succeeded in banishing from the city the most violent of their opponents, and that these persons had not scrupled to associate themselves with sabines to recover their homes. The consul Valyrius, aided by the latins of Tusculum, levied an army to attack the insurgents, on condition that after success the law should be fully considered. The exiles were driven out and Cardonius was killed, but the consul fell in the assault, and the patricians, led by old Sincenatus, refused to fulfill his promises. Then followed the danger of the equian invasion, to which the legend of Sincenatus, as given above, refers. The stern old man used his dictatorial power quite as much to crush the tribunes at home as to conquer the enemies abroad. One of the historians tells us that in this period of seditious violence many of the leading plebeians were assassinated, as the tribune Genusius had been, and to this time only can be attributed the horrible story mentioned by more than one writer that nine tribunes were burned alive at the insistence of their colleague Musius. Society was utterly disorganized. The two orders were on the brink of civil war. It seemed as if Rome was to become the city of discord, not of law. Happily, there were moderate men in both orders. Now, as at the time of the succession, their voices prevailed and a compromise was arranged. In the eighth year, after the first promulgation of the Tarentoian law, this compromise was made, B.C. 454. The law itself was no longer pressed by the tribunes. The patricians, on the other hand, so far gave way as to allow three men, Triomvirii, to be appointed, who were to travel into Greece and bring back a copy of the laws of Solon, as well as the laws and institutes of any other Greek states which they might deem good and useful. These were to be the groundwork of a new code of laws such as should give fair and equal rights to both orders and restrain the arbitrary power of the patrician magistrates. Another concession made by the patrician lords was a small installment of the agrarian law. El Asilius, Tribune of the Plebs, proposed that all the Aventine hill, being public land, should be made over to the plebs to be their quarter forever as the other hills were occupied by the patricians and their clients. This hill, will be remembered, was consecrated to the goddess Diana, Janna, and though included in the walls of Cervius was not yet within the sacred limits, Pomerarium, of the patrician city. After some opposition, the patricians suffered this Sicilian law to pass in hopes of soothing the anger of the plebians. The land was parceled out into building sites, but as there was not enough to give a separate plot to every plebeian householder that wished to live in the city, one allotment was assigned to several persons, who built a joint house, flats, or stories, each of which was inhabited, as in Edinburgh and in most foreign towns, by a separate family. The three men who had been sent into Greece returned in the third year, B.C. 452. They found the city free from domestic strife, partly from the concessions already made, partly from the expectation of what was now to follow, and partly from the effect of a pestilence which had broken out anew. So far did moderate councils now prevail among the patricians, that after some little delay they agreed to suspend the ordinary government by the consuls and other officers, and in their stead to appoint a council of ten, who were, during their existence, to be entrusted with all the functions of government. But they were to have a double duty. They were not only an administrative, but also a legislative council. On the one hand they were to conduct the government, administer justice, and command the armies. On the other, they were to draw up a code of laws by which equal justice was to be dealt out to the whole Roman people, to patricians and plebeians alike, and by which especially the authority to be exercised by the consuls or chief magistrates was to be clearly determined and settled. This supreme council of ten, or Dutch enviers, was first appointed in the year B.C. 450. They were all patricians. But their head stood Appius Claudius and T. Genusius, who had already been chosen consuls for this memorable year. This Appius Claudius, the third of his name, was son and grandson of those two patrician chiefs who had opposed the leaders of the plebeians so vehemently in the matter of the tribunate. But he affected a different conduct from his sires. He was the most popular man of the whole council, and became, in fact, the sovereign of Rome. At first he used his great power well, and the first year's government of the Dutch enviers was famed for justice and moderation. They also applied themselves diligently to their great work of lawmaking, and before the end of the year had drawn up a code of ten tables which were posted in the forum that all citizens might examine them and suggest amendments to the Dutch enviers. After due time, thus spent, the ten tables were confirmed and made law at the comitia of the centuries. By this code equal justice was to be administered to both orders, without distinction of persons. At the close of the year the first Dutch enviers laid down their office just as the councils and other officers of state had been accustomed to do before. They were succeeded by a second set of ten, who for the next year at least were to conduct the government like their predecessors. The only one of the old Dutch enviers re-elected was Appius Claudius, the patricians indeed endeavored to prevent even this, and to this end he was himself appointed to preside at the new elections, for it was held impossible for a chief magistrate to return his own name when he was himself presiding. But Appius scorned precedents. He returned himself as elected, together with nine others, men of no name, while two of the great Quintian gents who offered themselves were rejected. Of the new Dutch enviers it is certain that three, and it is probable that five were plebeians. Appius, with the plebeian opius, held the judicial office, and remained in the city, and these two seemed to have been regarded as the chiefs. The other six commanded the armies and discharged the duties previously assigned to the Quaystores and Eddiles. The first Dutch enviers had earned the respect and esteem of their fellow citizens. The new council of ten deserved the hatred which has ever since cloven to their name. Appius now threw off the mask which he had so long worn, and assumed his natural character, the same as had distinguished his sire and grand sire of unhappy memory. He became an absolute despot. His brethren in the council offered no hindrance to his will. Even the plebeian Dutch enviers, bribed by power, fell into his way of action, and supported his tyranny. They each had twelve Lictors who carried facies with the axes in them, the symbol of absolute power as in the times of the kings, so that it was said Rome had now twelve Tarquins instead of one, and one hundred and twenty armed Lictors instead of twelve. All freedom of speech ceased. The senate was seldom called together. The leading men, patricians and plebeians, left the city. The outward aspect of things was that of perfect calm and peace, but an opportunity only was wanting for the discontent which was smoldering in all men's hearts to break out and show itself. By the end of the year the Dutch enviers had added two more tables to the code, so that there were now twelve tables, but these two last were of a most oppressive and arbitrary kind, devoted chiefly to restore the ancient privileges of the patrician caste. Of these tables it should be observed that they were made laws not by the vote of the people, but by the simple edict of the Dutch enviers. It was no doubt expected that the second Dutch enviers would also have held comitia for the election of successors, but Appius and his colleagues showed no such intention, and when the year came to a close they continued to hold office as if they had been re-elected. So firmly did their power seem to be established that we hear of no endeavor being made to induce them to resign. In the course of this next year, B.C. 449, the border wars were renewed. On the north the Sabines and the Equines in the northeast invaded the Roman country at the same time. The latter penetrated as far as Mount Algidus, as in B.C. 458, when they were routed by old Sincenadis. The Dutch enviers probably, like the patrician Burgesses in former times, regarded these inroads not without satisfaction, for they turned away the mind of the people from their sufferings at home, yet from these very wars sprung the events which overturned their power and destroyed themselves. Two armies were levied, one to check the Sabines, the other to oppose the Equines, and these were commanded by the six military Dutch enviers. Appius and Alpius remained to administer affairs at home. But there was no spirit in the armies, both were defeated, and that which was opposed to the Equines was compelled to take refuge within the walls of Tusculum. Then followed two events which were preserved in well-known legends, and which give the popular narrative of the manner in which the power of the Dutch enviers was at last overthrown. In the army sent against the Sabines, Cicius Dentalis was known as the bravest man. He was then serving as a centurion. He had fought in 120 battles. He had slain eight champions in single combat. Had saved the lives of fourteen citizens. Had received forty wounds all in front. Had followed in nine triumphal processions, and had won crowns and decorations without number. This gallant veteran had taken an active part in the civil contest between the two orders, and was now suspected by the Dutch enviers commanding the Sabine army of plotting against them. Accordingly they determined to get rid of him, and for this end they sent him out as if to reconnoiter, with a party of soldiers who were secretly instructed to murder him. Having discovered their design he set his back against a rock and resolved to sell his life dearly. More than one of his assailants fell, and the rest stood at bay around him, not venturing to come within swords lane, when one wretch climbed up the rock behind and crushed the brave old man with a massive stone. But the manner of his death could not be hidden from the army, and the generals only prevented an outbreak by honoring him with a magnificent funeral. Such was the state of things in the Sabine army. LEGEND OF VIRGINIA Footnote. Dionysius is the authority for this legend. End of footnote. The other army had a still grosser outrage to complain of. In this there was a notable centurion, Virginius by name. His daughter, Virginia, just ripening into womanhood, beautiful as the day, was betrothed to El Isilius, the tribune who had carried the law for allotting the Aventine hill to the plebeians. Appius Claudius, the Dutch envir, saw her, and lusted to make her his own. And with this intent he ordered one of his clients, M. Claudius by name, to lay hands upon her as she was going to her school in the forum and to claim her as his slave. The man did so, and when the cries of her nurse brought a crowd round them, M. Claudius insisted on taking her before the Dutch envir, in order, as he said, to have the case fairly tried. Her friends consented, and those sooner had Appius heard the matter than he gave judgment that the maiden should be delivered up to the claimant, who should be bound to produce her in case her alleged father appeared to gainsay the claim. Now this judgment was directly against one of the laws of the twelve tables, which Appius himself had framed. For therein it was provided that any person being at freedom should continue free till it was proved that such person was a slave. Isilius, therefore, with Numitorius, the uncle of the maiden, boldly argued against the legality of the judgment, and at length Appius, fearing a tumult, agreed to leave the girl in their hands on condition of their giving Baal to bring her before him the next morning, and then, if Virginia's did not appear, he would at once, he said, give her up to her pretended master. To this Isilius consented, but he delayed giving Baal, pretending that he could not procure it readily. In the meantime he sent off a secret message to the camp on Algidus to inform Virginia's of what had happened. As soon as the Baal was given, Appius also sent a message to the Decemvirs in command of the army, ordering them to refuse leave of absence to Virginia's. But when this last message arrived, Virginia's was already halfway on his road to Rome, for the distance was not more than twenty miles, and he had started at nightfall. Next morning, early, Virginia's entered the forum, leading his daughter by the hand, both clad in mean attire. A great number of friends and matrons attended him, and he went about among the people in treating them to support him against the tyranny of Appius. So when Appius came to take his place on the judgment seat, he found the forum full of people, all friendly to Virginia's and his cause. But he inherited the boldness as well as the vices of his sires, and though he saw Virginia's standing there ready to prove that he was the maiden's father, he at once gave judgment, against his own law, that Virginia should be given up to M. Claudius till it should be proved that she was free. The wretch came up to seize her, and the lictors kept the people from him. Virginia's, now despairing of deliverance, begged Appius to allow him to ask the maiden whether she were indeed his daughter or not. If, said he, I find I am not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter. Under this pretense he drew her aside to a spot upon the northern side of the forum. Afterward called the Nova to Brunque, and here, snatching up a knife from a butcher's stall, he cried, In this way only can I keep thee free. And so, saying, stabbed her to the heart. Then he turned to the tribunal and said, On thee, Appius, and on thy head be this blood. Appius cried out to seize the murderer, but the crowd made way for Reginius, and he passed through them holding up the bloody knife, and went out at the gate, and made straight for the army. There, when the soldiers had heard his tale, they at once abandoned their dachemviro generals, and marched to Rome. They were soon followed by the other army from the Sabine Frontier. For to them Asilius had gone, and Numatorius, and they found willing ears among men who were already enraged by the murder of old Sousius Dentatus. So the two armies joined their banners, elected new generals, and encamped upon the Aventine hill, the quarter of the plebeians. Meantime, the people at home had risen against Appius, and after driving him from the forum, they joined their armed fellow-citizens upon the Aventine. There, the whole body of the commons, armed and unarmed, hung like a dark cloud ready to burst upon the city. Whatever may be the truth of the legends of Sousius and Virginia, there can be no doubt that the conduct of the dachemvirs had brought matters to the verge of civil war. At this juncture the senate met, and the moderate party so far prevailed as to send their own leaders, M. Horatius Barbatus and L. Valerius Potidus, to negotiate with the insurgents. The plebeians were ready to listen to the voices of these men, for they remembered that the consuls of the first year of the republic, when the patrician burgesses were friends to the plebeians, were named Valerius and Horatius, and so they appointed M. Duilius a former tribune to be their spokesman. But no good came of it, and Duilius persuaded the plebeians to leave the city, and once more to occupy the sacred mount. Then remembrances of the great secession came back upon the minds of the patricians, and the senate, observing the calm and resolute bearing of the plebeian leaders, compelled the dachemvirs to resign, and sent back Valerius and Horatius to negotiate anew. The leaders of the plebeians demanded, first, that the tribune ship should be restored, and the comitia tributa recognized. Secondly, that a rite of appeal to the people against the power of the supreme magistrate should be secured. Thirdly, that full indemnity should be granted to the movers and promoters of the late secession. Fourthly, that the dachemvirs should be burnt alive. Of these demands the deputies of the senate agreed to the three first, but the fourth, they said, was unworthy of a free people. It was a piece of tyranny as bad as any of the worst acts of the late government, and it was needless because anyone who had reason of complaint against the late dachemvirs might proceed against them according to law. The plebeians listened to these words of wisdom and withdrew their savage demand. The other three were confirmed by the fathers, and the plebeians returned to their quarters on the avantine. Here they held an assembly according to their tribes, in which the pontifex maximus presided. And they now, for the first time, elected ten tribunes, first Virginiais, Pneumatorius, and Isilius, then Duilius and six others. So full were their minds of the wrong done to the daughter of Virginiais, so entirely was it the blood of young Virginia that overthrew the dachemvirs, even as that of Lucretia had driven out the tarquins. The plebeians now returned to the city, headed by their ten tribunes, a number which was never again altered so long as the tribunate continued in existence. It remained for the patricians to redeem the pledges given by their agents Valyrius and Horatius on the other demands of the plebeian leaders. The first thing to settle was the election of the supreme magistrates. The dachemvirs had fallen, and the state was without any executive government. It has been supposed, as we have said above, that the government of the dachemvirs was intended to be perpetual. The patricians gave up their consuls and the plebeians their tribunes, on condition that each order was to be admitted to an equal share in the new dachemviral college. But the tribunes were now restored in augmented number, and it was but natural that the patricians should insist on again occupying all places in the supreme magistracy. By common consent, as it would seem, the comitsia of the centuries met and elected to the consulate the two patricians who had shown themselves the friends of both orders, El Valyrius Potidus and Am Horatius Barbatus. Thus ended the government of the dachemvirate. Section 2 of the Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Elsie Selwyn. The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 2, edited by Charles F. Horn, Rossiter Johnson, and John Rudd. Pericles Rules and Athens, BC 444 by Plutarch, Part 1. Section 2. Pericles Rules and Athens, BC 444 by Plutarch, Part 1. Under the sway of Pericles, many changes occurred in the civil affairs of Athens affecting the constitution of the state and the character and administration of its laws. Events of magnitude marked the struggles of the Athenians with other powers. The development of art and learning was carried to an unprecedented height, and the age of Pericles is the most illustrious in ancient history. Pericles began his career by opposing the aristocratic party of Athens, led by Simon. In this policy he was aided by complications arising with Sparta and Argos. Directing his attack particularly against the Arreo-Pegas, he succeeded in greatly modifying the composition of that body and diminishing its powers. The exile of Simon, the strengthening of Athens by new alliances, and the vigorous prosecution of wars against Persia and Corinth, combined to establish his supremacy, which was still further confirmed by the building of the long walls connecting Athens with the sea, and by the acquisition of neighboring territory. A favorable convention was concluded with Persia. Athens resumed a state of general peace, and Pericles found himself at the head of a powerful empire formed out of a confederacy previously existing. The strength of this empire was indeed soon impaired by ill-judged military movements against the advice of Pericles himself, but during six years of peace which followed, he succeeded in perfecting a state whose preeminence in intellectual, political, and artistic development has no rival. In the later wars of Athens, the renown of Pericles was still further enhanced, but his chief glory arose from the architectural adornment of the city, and especially from the building of the Parthenon and the splendid decoration of the Acropolis, while his work of judicial reform remains an added monument to his fame, and among the masters of eloquence his orations preserved for him a foremost place. Pericles was of the tribe Acamontus, and of the township of Cholargos, and was descended from the noblest families in Athens on both his father's and mother's side. His father, Xanthippus, defeated the Persian generals at Mykali, while his mother, Argaristi, was a descendant of Clisthenes who drove the sons of Picitratus out of Athens, put an end to their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirably calculated to reconcile all parties and save the country. She dreamed that she had brought forth a lion, and a few days afterward was delivered of Pericles. His body was symmetrical, but his head was long, out of all proportion, for which reason, and nearly all his statues, he is represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptures did not wish, I suppose, to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called him Squillhead, and the comic poet Cratonus, and his play Chirones, says, from Cronos' old infaction is sprung a tyrant dread, and all Olympus calls him the man-compelling head. And again, in the play of Nemesis, come hospitable Zeus with lofty head, to let Cliddes, too, speaks of him as sitting, bow down with a dreadful frown, because matters of state have gone wrong, until, at last, from his head so vast, his ideas birth forth in a throng. And you, Belize, in his play of Demoy, asking questions about each of the great orators as they come up from the other world one after the other when at last Pericles ascends says, the great headpiece of those below. Most writers tell us that his tutor in music was Damon, whose name, they say, should be pronounced with the first syllable short. Aristotle, however, says that he studied under Pythoc Cliddes. This Damon, it seems, was a sophist of the highest order, who used the name of music to conceal this accomplishment from the world, but who really trained Pericles for his political contests, just as a trainer prepares an athlete for the games. However, Damon's use of music as a pretext did not impose upon the Athenians, who banished him by ostracism as a busybody and lover of despotism. Pericles greatly admired Anaxuagoras and became deeply interested in grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty style of oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also an imperturbable gravity of countenance and a calmness of demeanor and appearance, which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. These advantages greatly impressed the people. The poet Aion, however, says that Pericles was overbearing and insolent in conversation, and that his pride had in it a great deal of contempt for others, while he praises Simon's civil, sensible, and polished address. But we may disregard Aion as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein, whereas Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Pericles a mere courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur to court popularity themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might insensibly mold their dispositions until they resembled that of their model. Pericles, when Aion greatly feared the people, he had a certain personal likeness to the despot Pisistratus, and as his own voice was sweet and he was ready and fluent in speech, old men who had known Pisitratus 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 how to leave from politics, but proved himself a brave and daring soldier in wars. But when Aristoteles was dead, Themistocles banished, and Simon generally absent on distant campaigns, Pericles 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 Simon took the side of the nobility and was much beloved by them, he took himself to the people as a means of obtaining safety for himself and a strong party to combat that of Simon. He immediately altered his mode of life, was never seen in any street except that which led to the marketplace and the National Assembly and declined all invitations to dinner and such like social gatherings. But Pericles 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 Cretolaus says, keeping himself like the Salamnian Terim for great crises and allowing his friends and the other orators to manage matters of less moment. Wishing to adopt a style of speaking consonant with his haughty manner and lofty spirit, Pericles made free use of the instrument which enacts agoras 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, 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 general, it is not by any means unlikely that these causes all combined to produce the name. Pericles 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. Thucydides represents the constitution under Pericles as a democracy and 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 in payments for their services in consequence of which they fell into bad habits and became extravagant and licentious instead of sober, hardworking 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, Pericles had to measure himself with Cimon and to transfer the affections of the people from Cimon to himself. As he was not so rich a man as Cimon 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 around his property so that anyone might gather the fruit. Pericles, 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 demonides of Oya. By the money paid for public spectacles for citizens acting as juremen and other paid offices and largeses, 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 Aerial Pugas of which he himself was now to member, never having been chosen Archon or Thesmothet or King Archon or Pollymark. 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 Aerial Pugas. For this reason it was the Pericles when he gained strength with the populace, destroyed the Senate, making a field to bring forward a bill which restricted its judicial powers while he himself succeeded in getting Cimon banished by ostrichism as a friend of Sparta and a hater of the people, although he was second to no Athenian in birth or fortune and won most brilliant victories over the Persians and had filled Athens with plunder and spoils of war. So great was the power of Pericles with the common people. One of the provisions of ostrichism was that the person banished should remain in exile for 10 years. But during this period, the Lachodemonians with a great force invaded the territory of Tanagra and as the Athenians that went from March out to attack them, Cimon came back from exile, took his place in full armor among the ranks of his own tribe and hoped by distinguishing himself in the battle among his fellow citizens to prove the falsehood of the Lachonian sympathies with which he had been charged. However, the friends of Pericles drove him away as an exile. On the other hand, Pericles fought more bravely in that battle than he had ever fought before and surpassed everyone in reckless daring, the friends of Cimon also whom Pericles had accused of Lachonian leanings now that they had lost a great battle on the frontier and expected to be hard-pressed during the summer by the Lachodemonians. Pericles, perceiving this, lost no time in gratifying the popular wish but himself proposed a decree for his recall and Cimon on his return reconciled the two states for he was on familiar terms with the Spartans who were hated by Pericles and the other leaders of the common people. Some say that before Cimon's recall by Pericles a secret compact was made by him by Elpinike, Cimon's sister, that Cimon was to proceed on foreign service against the Persians with a fleet of 200 ships while Pericles was to retain his power in the city. It is also said that when Cimon was being tried for his life, Elpinike softened the resentment of Pericles who was one of those appointed to impeach him. When Elpinike came to beg her brother's life of him, he answered with a smile, Elpinike, you are too old to meddle in affairs of this sort. But for all that, he spoke only once for form's sake and pressed Cimon less than any of his other prosecutors. How then can one put any faith in Edominius when he accused Pericles of procuring the assassination of his friend and colleague, Ephilealtes, because he was jealous of his reputation? This seems an ignoble columnie which Edominius has drawn from some obscure source to fling out a man who no doubt was not faultless but of a generous spirit and noble mind and capable of entertaining so savage and brutal a design. Ephilealtes was disliked and feared by the nobles and was inexorable in punishing those who wronged the people. Wherefore, his enemies had him assassinated by the means of Aristicus of Tanagra. This we are told by Aristotle. Cimon died in Cyprus while in command of the Athenian forces. The nobles now perceived that Pericles was the most important man in the state and far more powerful than any other citizen. Wherefore, as they still hoped to check his authority and not allow him to be omnipotent, they set up through citities of the township of Aloe Pekai as his rival, a man of good sense and a relative of Cimon but less of a warrior and more of a politician who, by watching his opportunities and opposing Pericles in debate, soon brought about a balance of power. He did not allow the nobles to mix themselves up with the people and the public assembly as they had been want to do so that their dignity was lost among the masses. But he collected them into a separate body and by thus concentrating their strength was able to use it to counterbalance that of the other party. From the beginning these two factions had been but imperfectly welded together because their tendencies were different. But now the struggle for power between Pericles and Thucydides drew a sharp line of demarcation between them and one was called the party of the many, the other that of the few. Pericles now courted the people in every way, constantly arranging public spectacles, festivals and processions in the city by which he educated the Athenians to take pleasure in refined amusements and also he sent out 60 triremes to cruise every year in which many of the people served for hire for eight months learning and practicing seamanship. Besides this he sent a thousand settlers to the Cersonesi, 500 to Naxos, half as many to Andros, a thousand to dwell among the Thracian tribe of the Bissalti and the others to the new colony in Italy founded by the city of Cybarus, which was named Thurii. By this means he relieved the state of numerous idol agitators, assisted the Necessitus and overawed the allies of Athens by placing his colonists near them to watch their behavior. The building of the temples by which Athens was adorned, the people delighted and the rest of the world astonished in which now alone proved that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are no fables was what particularly excited the spleen of the opposite faction who invaded against him in the public assembly declaring that the Athenians had disgraced themselves by transferring the common treasury of the Greeks from the island of Delos to their own custody. Pericles himself, they urged, has taken away the only possible excuse for such an act, the fear that it might be exposed to the attacks of the Persians when at Delos whereas it would be safe at Athens. Greece has been outraged and feels itself openly tyrannized over when it sees us using the funds which we exhorted from it for the war against the Persians for guilting and beautifying our city as if it were a vain woman and adorning it with precious marbles and statues and temples worth a thousand talents. To this Pericles replied that the allies had no right to consider how their money was spent so long as Athens defended them from the Persians. While they supplied neither horses, ships, nor men but merely money which the Athenians had a right to spend as they pleased provided they afforded them that security which it purchased. It was right, he argued, that after the city had provided all that was necessary for war it should devote its surplus money to the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages. While these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed and encouraging all sorts of handicraft so that nearly the whole city would earn wages and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself. For those who were in the flower of their age military service offered a means of earning money from the common stock. While, as he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share nor yet to see them receive it without doing work for it he had laid the foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every kind to complete them and he had done this in the interests of the lower classes who thus, although they remained at home would have just as good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who were serving at sea and garrison or in the field. The different materials used such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress wood and so forth would require special artisans for each such as carpenters, modelers, smiths, stone masons, dyers, melters and molders of gold and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers and relief and also men to bring them to the city such as sailors and captains of ships and pilots for such as came by sea and for those who came by land, carriage builders, horse breeders, drivers, rope makers, linen manufacturers, shoemakers, road menders and miners each trade moreover employed a number of unskilled laborers so that in a word there would be work for persons of every age and every class and general prosperity would be the result. These buildings were of immense size and unequaled in beauty and grace as the workmen endeavor to make the execution surpass the design and beauty but what was most remarkable was the speed with which they were built. All these edifices each of which one would have thought it would have taken many generations to complete were all finished during the most brilliant period of one man's administration. In beauty, each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it was built but even at the present day the work looks as fresh as ever for they bloom with an eternal freshness which defies time and seems to make the work instinct with an unfading spirit of youth. The overseer and manager of the whole was Phidias although there were other excellent architects and workmen such as Calacrates and Ectinus who built the Parthenon on the side of the old Hecatomperon which had been destroyed by the Persians and Coriobus who built the temple of initiation at Elusis but who only lived to see the columns erected in the architraves placed upon them. On his death, Metigines of Xicpite how did the frieze in the upper row of columns and Xenocles of Cholargos crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine? As to the long wall about which Socrates says that he heard Pericles bring forward a motion Calacrates undertook to build it. The odium which internally consisted of many rows of seats in many columns and externally of a roof sloping on all sides from the central point was said to have been built in imitation of the king of Persia's tent and was built under Pericles' direction. The propylia before the acropolis were finished in five years by Manisocles, the architect in a miraculous incident during the work seemed to show that the goddess did not disapprove but rather encouraged and assisted the building. The most energetic and active of the workmen fell from a great height and lay in a dangerous condition given over by his doctors. Pericles grieved much for him but the goddess appeared to him in a dream and suggested a course of treatment by which Pericles quickly healed the workmen. In consequence of this he set up the brazen statue of Athene the healer near the old altar in the acropolis. The golden statue of the goddess was made by Fiadius and his name appears upon the basement in the inscription. Almost everything was in his hands and he gave his orders to all the workmen as has been said before because of his friendship with Pericles. When the speakers of Thucydides' party complained that Pericles had wasted the public money and destroyed the revenue he asked the people in the assembly whether they thought he had spent much when they answered, very much indeed. He said in reply, do not then put it down to the public account but to mine and I will inscribe my name upon all the public buildings. When Pericles said this the people either in admiration of his magnificence of manner or being eager to bear their share in the glory of the new buildings shouted to him with one accord to take what money he pleased from the treasury and spend it as he pleased without stint and finally he underwent the trial of ostrichism with Thucydides and not only succeeded in driving him into exile but broke up his party. As now there was no opposition to encounter in the city and all parties had been blended into one Pericles undertook the sole administration of the home and foreign affairs of Athens dealing with the public revenue of the army, the navy, the islands and maritime affairs and the great sources of strength which Athens derived from her alliances as well as with Greek as with foreign princes and states. Henceforth he became quite a different man. He no longer gave way to the people and ceased to watch the breath of the popular favor but he changed the loose and licentious democracy which had hitherto existed and to a stricter aristocratic or rather monarchical form of government. This he used honorably and unswervingly for the public benefit, finding the people as a role willing to suck into measures which he explained to them to be necessary into which he asked their consent but occasionally having to use violence and to force them much against their will to do what was expedient. Like a physician dealing with some complicated disorder who at one time allows his patient innocent recreation and at another and flicks upon him sharp pains and bitter those salutary droughts. Every possible kind of disorder was to be found among the people possession so great an empire as the Athenians and he alone was able to bring them into harmony by playing alternately upon their hopes and fears shacking them when overconfident and raising their spirits when they were cast down and disheartened. Thus as Plato says he was able to prove that oratory is the art of influencing men's minds and to use it in its highest application when it deals with men's passions and characters which like certain strings of a musical instrument require a skillful and delicate touch. The secret of his power is to be found however as Thucydides says not so much in his mere oratory as in his pure and blameless life because he was so well known to be incorruptible and indifferent to money. For though he made the city which was a great one into the greatest and richest city of Greece and though he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns who were able to lead their kingdoms to their sons yet Pericles did not increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from his father. For 40 years he held the first place among such men as Ephialtes, Leocrates, Meronides, Simon, Tormides and Thucydides and after the fallen banishment of Thucydides by ostracism he united in himself for five and 20 years all the various offices of state which were supposed to last only for one year and yet during the whole of that period proved himself incorruptible by bribes. End of section two. Section three of the great events by famous historians, volume two. This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Elsie Selwyn. The great events by famous historians, volume two edited by Charles F. Horn, Rossiter Johnson and John Rudd. Section three. Pericles rules in Athens, BC 444 by Plutarch, part two. As the Lachitimonians began to be jealous of the prosperity of the Athenians Pericles wishing to raise the spirit of the people and to make them feel capable of immense operations passed a decree inviting all the Greeks whether inhabiting Europe or Asia whether living in large cities or small ones to send representatives to a meeting at Athens to deliberate about the restoration of the Greek temples which had been burned by the barbarians about the sacrifices which were due in consequence of the vows which they had made to the gods on behalf of Greece before joining the battle and about the sea that all men might be able to sail upon it in peace and without fear. To carry out this decree 20 men selected from the citizens over 50 years of age were sent out five of whom invited to the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in Asia and the islands as far as Lesbos and Rhodes. Five went to the inhabitants of the Helispont and Thrace as far as Byzantium and five more proceeded to Boetia, Phosus and Peloponnesus passing from thence through Locros to the neighboring continent as far as Arcanania and Ambrachia. While the remainder journeyed through Euboea to the Boetians and the Malayan Gulf and to the Achaeans of Phetia and the Thessalians urging them to join the assembly and take part in the deliberations concerning the peace and well-being of Greece. However, nothing was affected and the cities never assembled and consequence it is said of the covert hostility of the Lachodemonians and because the attempt was first made in Peloponnesus and failed there. Yet I have inserted an account of it in order to show the lofty spirit and magnificent designs of Pericles. In his campaigns, he was chiefly remarkable for caution for he would not if he could not help it to begin a battle of which the issue was doubtful nor did he wish to emulate those generals who have won themselves a great reputation by running risks and trusting to good luck but he ever used to say to his countrymen that none of them should come by their deaths through any act of his. Observing that Tolmides, the son of Tolnius elated by previous successes and by the credit which he had gained as a general was about to invade Boetia in a reckless manner and had persuaded a thousand young men to follow him without any support whatever. He endeavored to stop him and made that memorable saying in the public assembly that if Tolmides would not take the advice of Pericles he would at any rate do well to consult that of best advisor's time. This speech had but little success at the time but when a few days afterward the news came that Tolmides had fallen in action at Coroneia and many noble citizens with him Pericles was greatly respected and admired as a wise and patriotic man. His most successful campaign was that in the Cheresoneus which proved the salvation of the Greeks residing there for he had not only settled a thousand colonists there and thus increased the available force of the cities but built a continuous line of fortifications reaching across the Isthmus from one sea to the other by which he shut off the Thracians who had previously ravaged the peninsula and put an end to a constant and harassing border warfare to which the settlers were exposed as they had for neighbors, tribes of wild plundering barbarians. But that by which he obtained most glory and renown was when he started from Pagai to the Megarian territory and sailed around the Peloponnesus with a fleet of hundred triremes for he not only laid waste much of the country near the coast as Tolmides had previously done but he proceeded far inland away from his ships leading the troops who were on board and terrified the inhabitants so much that they shut themselves up in their strongholds. The men of Scythion alone ventured to meet him at Namia and then he overthrew it in a pitched battle and erected a trophy. Next he took on board troops from the friendly district of Acaya and crossing over to the opposite side of the Corinthian Gulf coasted along past the mouth of the river Akelus overran Acarnania, drove the people of Oenidai to the shelter of their city walls and after ravaging the country returned home having made himself a terror to his enemies and done good service to Athens but not the least casualty even by accident befell the troops under his command. When he sailed into the Black Sea with a great and splendidly equipped fleet he assisted the Greek cities there and treated them with consideration and showed the neighboring savage tribes and their chiefs the greatness of his force and his confidence and his power by sailing where he pleased and taking complete control over that sea. He laughed at Sinope, 13 ships and a land force under the command of Lomacus to act against Timosillian who had made himself despot of that city. When he and his party were driven out Pericles passed a decree that 600 Athenian volunteers should sail to Sinope and become citizens there receiving houses and lands which had formally been in the possession of the despot and his party. But in other cases he would not agree to the impulsive proposals of the Athenians and he opposed them when elated by their power and good fortune they talked of recovering Egypt and attacking the seaboard of the Persian Empire. Many two were inflamed with that ill-starred notion of an attempt on Sicily which was afterward blown into a flame by Alcabiandes and other orators. Some even dreamed of the conquest of Atruria and Carthage and consequence of the greatness which the Athenian Empire had already reached in the full tide of success which seemed to attend it. Pericles however restrained these outbursts and would not allow the people to meddle with foreign states but used the power of Athens chiefly to preserve and guard her already existing empire thinking it to be of paramount importance to oppose the Lachydemonians a task to which he bent all his energies as it proved by many of his acts especially in connection with the sacred war and this war the Lachydemonians sent a force to Delphi and made their Phocians who held it give it up to the people of Delphi but as soon as they were gone Pericles made an expedition into the country and restored the temple to the Phocians and as the Lachydemonians had scratched the oracle which the Delphians had given them on the forehead of the brazen wolf there Pericles got a response from the oracle for the Athenians and carved it on the right side of the same wolf. events proved that Pericles was right in confining the Athenian Empire to Greece. First of all, Euboea revolted and he was obliged to lead an army to subdue that island. Shortly after this news came that the Migarians had become hostile and that an army under the command of Plistoanax king of the Lachydemonians was menacing the frontier of Attica. Pericles now in all haste withdrew his troops from Euboea to meet the invader. He did not venture on engagement with the numerous and warlike forces of the enemy although repeatedly invited by them to fight but observing that Plistoanax was a very young man and entirely under the influence of Clonine Drudis whom the F-4s had sent to act as his tutor and counselor because of his tender years he opened secret negotiations with the latter who at once for a bribe agreed to withdraw the Peloponnesians from Attica. When their army returned and dispersed the Lachydemonians were so incensed that they imposed a fine on their king and condemned Clonine Drudis who fled the country to be put to death. This Clion Drudis was the father of Galipus who caused the ruin of the Athenian expedition in Sicily. Averus seems to have been hereditary in the city for Galipus himself after brilliant exploits and war was convicted of taking bribes and banished from Sparta and disgrace. When Pericles submitted the accounts of the campaign to the people there was an item of 10 talents for a necessary purpose which the people passed without any questioning or any curiosity to learn the secret some historians among whom is Theophrastus the philosopher say that Pericles sent 10 talents annually to Sparta by means of which he bribed the chief magistrates to defer the war that's not buying peace but time to make preparations for a better defense. He immediately turned his attention to the insurgents and Euboea and proceeded thither with a fleet of 50 sail and 5,000 heavy armed troops. He reduced their cities to submission. He banished from Chalcas the equestrian order as it was called consisting of men of wealth and station. And he drove all the inhabitants of Hestiaia out of their country replacing them by Athenian settlers. He treated these people with this pitiless severity because they had captured an Athenian ship and put its crew to the sword. After this, as the Athenians and Lachodemonians made a truce for 30 years Pericles decreed the expedition against Samos on the pretext that they had disregarded the commands of the Athenians to cease from their war with the militians. Pericles is accused of going to war with Samos to save the militians. These states were at war about the possession of the city of Pereni and the Samians who were victorious would not lay down their arms and allow the Athenians to settle the matter by arbitration as they ordered them to do. For this reason, Pericles proceeded to Samos put an end to the oligarchical form of government there and sent 50 hostages and as many children to Lemnos to ensure the good behavior of the leading men. It is said that each of these hostages offered him a talent for his own freedom and that much more was offered by that party which was loathed to see a democracy established in the city. Besides all this, Pesuthanace, the Persian who had a liking for the Samians sent and offered him 10,000 pieces of gold if he would spare the city. Pericles, however, took none of these bribes but dealt with Samos as he had previously determined and returned to Athens. The Samians, now at once revolted as Pesuthanace, managed to get them back their hostages and furnish them with the means of carrying on the war. Pericles now made a second expedition against them and found them in no mind to submit quietly but determined to dispute the Empire of the Seas with the Athenians. Pericles gained a signal victory over them in a sea fight off the Goats Island beating a fleet of 70 ships with only 44, 20 of which were transports. Simultaneously with his victory and the flight of the enemy, he obtained command of the harbor of Samos and besieged the Samians in their city. They, in spite of their defeat, still possessed courage enough to sally out and fight a battle under the walls but soon a larger force arrived from Athens and the Samians were completely blockaded. Pericles, now with 60 ships, sailed out of the archipelago into the Mediterranean according to the most current report intending to meet the Phoenician fleet which was coming to help the Samians. But according to his deaths in Brotus with the intent of attacking Cyprus which seems improbable. Whatever his intention may have been his expedition was a failure for Melissa's, the son of Ithigenes, a man of culture who was then in command of the Samian forces conceiving a contempt for the small force of the Athenians and the want of experience of their leaders after Pericles' departure persuaded his countrymen to attack them and the battle of the Samians proved victorious taking many Athenians prisoner and destroying many of their ships. By this victory they obtained command of the sea and were able to supply themselves with more warlike stores than they had possessed before. Aristotle even says that Pericles himself was before this beaten by Melissa's in a sea fight. The Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of their Athenian prisoners to revenge themselves for the branding of their own prisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a Samina. This is a ship having a beak turned up like a swine snout but with a roomy hull so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast. This class of vessel was called a Samina because it was first built at Samos by Polocrates, the despot of that island. When Pericles heard of the disaster which had befallen his army he returned in all haste to assist them. He beat Melissa's who came out to meet him and after putting the animator biotinette once built a wall around their city preferring to reduce it by blockade to risking the lives of his countrymen in an assault. In the ninth month of the siege the Samians surrendered. Pericles demolished their walls, confiscated their fleet and imposed a heavy fine upon them some part of which was paid at once by the Samians who gave hostages for the payment of the remainder at fixed periods. Pericles after the reduction of Samos returned to Athens where he buried those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner and was much admired for the funeral oration which as is customary was spoken by him over the grays of his countrymen. Ion says that his victory of the Samians wonderfully flattered his vanity. Agamemnon, he was want to say took 10 years to take a barbarian city but he in nine months had made himself master the first and most powerful city in Ionia. And the comparison was not an unjust one for truly the war was a very great undertaking and its issue quite uncertain since as Thucydides tells us the Samians came very near to resting the Empire of the Sea from the Athenians. After these events as the clouds were gathering for the Peloponnesian war Pericles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance to the people of Corsaira who were at war with the Corinthians and thus to attach on their own side an island with a powerful naval force at a moment when the Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them. When the people passed this decree Pericles sent only 10 ships under the command of Lachodimonius, the son of Cimon as if he designed of the liberate insult for the house of Cimon was on peculiarly friendly terms with the Lachodimonians. His design in sending Lachodimonius out against his will and with so few ships was that if he performed nothing brilliant he might be accused even more than he was already of leaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed by all means in his power he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Cimon's family representing that by their very names they were aliens, one son being named Lachodimonius, another Thessalus, another Eleus, moreover the mother of all three was Narcadian. Now Pericles was much reproached for sending these 10 ships which were of little value to the Corsairians and gave a great handle to his enemies to use against him and in consequence sent a larger force after them to Corsaira which arrived there after the battle. The Corinthians enraged at this complained in the Congress of Sparta of the conduct of the Athenians as did also the Megharinians who said that they were excluded from every market and every harbor which were in the Athenian hands contrary to the ancient rites and common privileges of the Hellenic race. The people of Iginia also considered themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated and secretly bemoaned their grievances in the ears of the Spartans for they dared not openly bring any charges against the Athenians. At this time too Potodaea, a city subject to Athens but a colony of Corinth revolted and its siege materially hastened the outbreak of the war. Archidamus, indeed the king and the Lachodemonians sent ambassadors to Athens was willing to submit all disputed points to arbitration and endeavored to moderate the excitement of his allies so that war probably would not have broken out if the Athenians could have been persuaded to rescind their decree of exclusion against the Megharians and to come to terms with them. And for this reason Pericles who was particularly opposed to this and urged the people not to give way to the Megharians alone bore the blame of having begun the war. Pericles passed a decree for a herald to be sent to the Megharians and then to go on to the Lachodemonians to complain of their conduct. This decree of Pericles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner but the herald, Anthemocritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the Megharians and Sharnus passed a decree to the effect that Athenians should wage war against them to the death without truth or armistice that any Megharian found in Attica would 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 Megharian territory twice every year and that Anthemocritus should be buried near the city gate leading into the Thrician plain which is now called the double gate. How the dispute originated it is hard to say but all writers agree in throwing on Pericles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree. Now, as the Lachodemonians 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 Pericles' descent from the Alchemioni die 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 Pericles met with much greater honor and respect from his countrymen than before because they saw that he was an object of a special dislike to the enemy for this reason before the Peloponnesians under Archedamus invaded Attica he warned the Athenians that of Archedamus 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 he should give both the land and the farm buildings upon it to the state. The Lachodemonians invaded Attica with a great host of their own troops and those of their allies led by Archedamus their king they proceeded ravaging the country as they went as far as Acharnai 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 Pericles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against 60,000 Peloponnesian and Boetian 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 in treaties of the seasick and terrified passengers so did Pericles shut the gates of Athens place sufficient forces to ensure the safety of the city at all points and calmly carry out his policy taking little heat 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 his enemies Cleon too attacked him using the anger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personal popularity Pericles was unmoved by any of these attacks but quietly endured all the storm of obliqui he sent a fleet of a hundred ships to attack Peloponnesus but did not sail with it himself remaining at home to keep a tight hand over Athens until the Peloponnesians drew off their forces he regained his popularity with the common people who suffered much from the war by giving them allowances of money from the public revenue and grants of land for he drove out the entire population of the island of Agina and divided the land by lot among the Athenians a certain amount of relief also was experienced by reflecting upon the injuries which they were inflicting on the enemy for the fleet as it sailed around Peloponnesus destroyed many small villages and cities and ravaged a great extent of country while Pericles himself led an expedition into the territory of Megara and laid it all waste by this it is clear that the allies although they did much damage to the Athenians yet suffered equally themselves and never could have protracted the war for such a length of time as it really lasted but as Pericles foretold must soon have desisted had not provenance interfered and confounded human councils for now the pestilence fell among the Athenians and cut off the flower of their youth suffering both in body and mind they raved against Pericles just as people when delirious with disease tacked their fathers or their physicians they endeavored to ruin him urged on his personal enemies who assured them that he was the author of the plague because he had brought all the country people into the city where they were compelled to live during the heat of the summer crowded together in small rooms and stifling tents living in idle life too and breathing foul air instead of the pure country breeze to which they were accustomed the cause of this they said was the man who when the war began admitted the masses of the country people into the city and then made no use of them but allowed them to be penned up together like cattle and transmit the contagion from one to another without devising any remedy or alleviation of their sufferings hoping to relieve them somewhat and also to annoy the enemy Pericles manned 150 ships placed on board besides the sailors many brave infantry and cavalry soldiers and was about to put to sea the Athenians conceived great hopes and the enemy no less terror from so large an armament when all was ready and Pericles himself had just embarked in his own trireme an eclipse of the sun took place producing total darkness and all men were terrified at so great a portent Pericles sailed with the fleet but did nothing worthy of so great a force he besieged the sacred city of Epidares but although he had great hopes of taking it he failed on account of the plague which destroyed not only his own men but everyone who came in contact with them after this he again endeavored to encourage the Athenians to whom he had become an object of dislike however he did not succeed in pacifying them but they condemned him by a public vote to be general no more and to pay a fine which is stated at the lowest estimate to have been 15 talents and at the highest, 50 this was carried according to Eidomeneus by Cleon but according to Theophrastus by Simeas while Heraclides of Pontus says that it was affected by Lakartides he soon regained his public position for the people's outburst of anger was quenched by the blow they had dealt him just as a bee leaves its sting in the wound but his private affairs were in great distress and disorder as he had lost many of his relatives during the plague while others were estranged from him on political grounds yet he would not yield nor bait his firmness in constancy of spirit because of these afflictions but was not observed to weep or to moan or to attend the funeral of any of his relations until he lost Parolis the last of his legitimate offspring crushed by this blow he tried in vain to keep up his grand Arab indifference and when carrying a garland to lay upon the corpse he was overwhelmed by his feelings so as to burst into a passion of tears and sobs which he had never done before in his whole life Athens made trial for other generals and public men to conduct her affairs but none appeared to be a sufficient way to reputation to have such a charge entrusted to him the city longed for Paracles and invited him again to lead its councils and direct its armies and he, although dejected in spirits and living in seclusion in his own house was yet persuaded by Ascibiades and his other friends to resume the direction of affairs after this it appears that Paracles was attacked by the plague not acutely or continuously as in most cases but in a slow, wasting fashion exhibiting many varieties of symptoms and gradually undermining his strength as he was now on his deathbed the most distinguished of the citizens and his surviving friends collected round him and spoke admirably of his nobleness and immense power enumerating also the number of his exploits and the trophies which he had set up for victories gained for while in chief command he had won no less than nine victories for Athens events soon made the loss of Paracles felt and regretted by the Athenians those who during his lifetime had complained that his power completely threw them into the shade when after his death they made trial for other orators and statesmen were obliged to confess that with all his arrogance no man ever was really more moderate and that his real mildness in dealing with people was as remarkable as his apparent pride and assumption his power, which had been so grudged and envied and called monarchy and despotism now was proved to have been the saving of the state such an amount of corrupt dealing and wickedness suddenly broke out in public affairs which he before had crushed and forced to hide itself and so prevented its becoming incurable through impunity and license End of section three