continue to be spent in aggressive warfare against the Persian king, in Egypt and elsewhere, — conformably to the projects pursued by Kimon during his life.[1] But Perikles was right in contending that such outlay would have been simply wasteful; of no use either to Athens or her allies, though risking all the chances of distant defeat, such as had been experienced a few years before in Egypt. The Persian force was already kept away, both from the waters of the Ægean and the coast of Asia, either by the stipulations of the treaty of Kallias, or — if that treaty be supposed apocryphal — by a conduct practically the same as those stipulations would have enforced. The allies, indeed, might have had some ground of complaint against Perikles, either for not reducing the amount of tribute required from them, seeing that it was more than sufficient for the legitimate purposes of the confederacy, or for not having collected their positive sentiment as to the disposal of it. But we do not find that this was the argument adopted by Thucydides and his party, nor was it calculated to find favor either with aristocrats or democrats, in the Athenian assembly.
Admitting the injustice of Athens — an injustice common to both the parties in that city, not less to Kimon than to Perikles — in acting as despot instead of chief, and in discontinuing all appeal to the active and hearty concurrence of her numerous allies, we shall find that the schemes of Perikles were at the same time eminently Pan-Hellenic. In strengthening and ornamenting Athens, in developing the full activity of her citizens, in providing temples, religious offerings, works of art, solemn festivals, all of surpassing attraction, he intended to exalt her into something greater than an imperial city with numerous dependent allies. He wished to make her the centre of Grecian feeling, the stimulus of Grecian intellect, and the type of strong democratical patriotism combined with full liberty of individual taste and aspiration. He wished not merely to retain the adherence of the subject states, but to attract the admiration and spontaneous deference of independent neighbors, so as to procure for Athens a moral ascendency much beyond the range of her direct power. And he succeeded in elevating the city to
- ↑ 1 Plutarch, Perikles, c. 20.
