SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE WAR. 175 there is nothing to warrant us in restricting the encomium of Thucydides exclusively to the later life of Perikles, or in repre- senting the earlier life as something in pointed contrast with that encomium. Construing fairly what the historian says, he evi- dently did not so conceive the earlier life of Perikles. Either those political changes which are held by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, to demonstrate the corrupting effect of Perikles and his political ascendency, such as the limitation of the functions of the Areopagus, as well as of the power of the magistrates, the establishment of the numerous and frequent popular dikas- teries with regular pay, and perhaps also the assignment of pay to those who attended the ekklesia, the expenditure for public works, religious edifices and ornaments, the diobely (or distri- bution of two oboli per head to the poorer citizens at various festivals, in order that they might be able to pay for their places in the theatre), taking it as it then stood, etc., did not appear to Thucydides mischievous and corrupting, as these other writ- ers thought them ; or else he did not particularly refer them to Perikles. Both are true, probably, to some extent. The internal politi- cal changes at Athens, respecting the Areopagus and the dikas- teries, took place when Perikles was a young man, and when he cannot be supposed to have yet acquired the immense personal ascendency which afterwards belonged to him. Ephialtes in fact seems in those early days to have been a greater man than Per- ikles, if we may judge by the fact that he was selected by his political adversaries for assassination, so that they might with greater propriety be ascribed to the party with which Perikles was connected, rather than to that statesman himself. But next, we have no reason to presume that Thucydides considered these changes as injurious, or as having deteriorated the Athenian character. All that he does say as to the working of Perikles on the sentiment and actions of his countrymen, is eminently favor- able. He represents the presidency of that statesman as moder- ate, cautious, conservative, and successful ; he describes him as uniformly keeping back the people from rash enterprises, and from attempts to extend their empire, as looking forward to the necessity of a war, and maintaining the naval, military, and
financial forces of the state in constant condition to stand it,
