d art; and indeed the aristocratic leaders of
contending parties are rarely so hostile to each other as their
subordinate followers suppose. In the present strife for the recall
of his rival, amid all the intrigues and conspiracies, the open
violence and the secret machination, which threatened not only the
duration of the government, but the very existence of the republic,
Pericles met the danger by proposing himself the repeal of Cimon's
sentence.

Plutarch, with a childish sentimentality common to him when he means
to be singularly effective, bursts into an exclamation upon the
generosity of this step, and the candour and moderation of those
times, when resentments could be so easily laid aside. But the
profound and passionless mind of Pericles was above all the weakness
of a melodramatic generosity. And it cannot be doubted that this
measure was a compromise between the government and the more moderate
and virtuous of the aristocratic party. Perhaps it was the most
advantageous compromise Pericles was enabled to effect; for by
concession with respect to individuals, we can often prevent
concession as to things. The recall [196] of the great leader of the
anti-popular faction may have been deemed equivalent to the surrender
of many popular rights. And had we a deeper insight into the
intrigues of that day and the details of the oligarchic conspiracy, I
suspect we should find that, by recalling Cimon, Pericles saved the
constitution. [197]

XIV. The first and most popular benefit anticipated from the recall
of the son of Miltiades in a reconciliation between Sparta and Athens,
was not immediately realized further than by an armistice of four
months. [198]

About this time the long walls of the Piraeus were completed (B. C.
455), and shortly afterward Aegina yielded to the arms of the
Athenians (B. C. 455), upon terms which subjected the citizens of that
gallant and adventurous isle (whose achievements and commerce seem no
less a miracle than the greatness of Athens when we survey the limits
of their narrow and rocky domain) to the rival they had long so
fearlessly, nor fruitlessly braved. The Aeginetans surrendered their
shipping, demolished their walls, and consented to the payment of an
annual tribute. And so was fulfilled the proverbial command of
Pericles, that Aegina ought not to remain the eyesore of Athens.

XV. Aegina reduced, the Athenian fleet of fifty galleys, manned by
four thousand men [19