in its rich simplicity than the world had ever seen. By his masterly
eloquence and the magic of his presence, Pericles infused the Greeks
with a passion for beauty and a desire to create. And no man can inspire
others with the desire to create who has not taken sacred fire from the
altar of the gods. The creative genius is the highest gift vouchsafed to
man, and wherein man is likest God. The desire to create does not burn
the heart of the serf, and only free people can respond to the greatest
power ever given to any First Citizen.

In beautifying the city there was a necessity for workers in stone,
brass, iron, ivory, gold, silver and wood. Six thousand of the citizens
were under daily pay as jurors, to be called upon if their services were
needed; most of the other male adults were soldiers. Through the genius
of Pericles and his generals these men were set to work as masons,
carpenters, braziers, goldsmiths, painters and sculptors. Talent was
discovered where before it was supposed there was none; music found a
voice; playwriters discovered actors; actors found an audience; and
philosophy had a hearing. A theater was built, carved almost out of
solid stone, that seated ten thousand people, and on the stage there was
often heard a chorus of a thousand voices. Physical culture developed
the perfect body so that the Greek forms of that time are today the
despair of the human race. The recognition of the sacredness of the
temple of the soul was taught as a duty; and to make the body beautiful
by right exercise and by right life became a science. The sculptor must
have models approaching perfection, and the exhibition of the sculptor's
work, together with occasional public religious processions of naked
youths, kept before the people ideals superb and splendid.

For several years everybody worked, carrying stone, hewing, tugging,
lifting, carving. Up the steep road that led to the Acropolis was a
constant procession carrying materials. So infused was everybody and
everything with the work that a story is told of a certain mule that had
hauled a cart in the endless procession. This worthy worker, "who was
sustained by neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity," finally
became galled and lame and was turned out to die. But the mule did not
die--nothing dies until hope dies. That mule pushed his way back into
the throng and up and down he went, filled and comforted with the
thought that he was doing his work--and all r