y.
[257] Who fled into Macedonia.--Theopomp. ap. Strab. The number of
Athenian colonists was one thousand, according to Diodorus--two
thousand, according to Theopompus.
[258] Aristoph. Nub., 213.
[259] Thucyd., i., 111.
[260] ibid., i., 115.
[261] As is evident, among other proofs, from the story before
narrated, of his passing his accounts to the Athenians with the item
of ten talents employed as secret service money.
[262] The Propylaea alone (not then built) cost two thousand and
twelve talents (Harpocrat. in propylaia tauta), and some temples cost
a thousand talents each. [Plut. in vit. Per.] If the speech of
Pericles referred to such works as these, the offer to transfer the
account to his own charge was indeed but a figure of eloquence. But,
possibly, the accusation to which this offer was intended as a reply
was applicable only to some individual edifice or some of the minor
works, the cost of which his fortune might have defrayed. We can
scarcely indeed suppose, that if the affected generosity were but a
bombastic flourish, it could have excited any feeling but laughter
among an audience so acute.
[263] The testimony of Thucydides (lib. ii., c. 5) alone suffices to
destroy all the ridiculous imputations against the honesty of Pericles
which arose from the malice of contemporaries, and are yet perpetuated
only by such writers as cannot weigh authorities. Thucydides does not
only call him incorrupt, but "clearly or notoriously honest."
[Chraematon te diaphanos adorotatos.] Plutarch and Isocrates serve to
corroborate this testimony.
[264] Plut. in vit. Per.
[265] Thucyd., lib. ii., c. 65.
[266] "The model of this regulation, by which Athens obtained the
most extensive influence, and an almost absolute dominion over the
allies, was possibly found in other Grecian states which had subject
confederates, such as Thebes, Elis, and Argos. But on account of the
remoteness of many countries, it is impossible that every trifle could
have been brought before the court at Athens; we must therefore
suppose that each subject state had an inferior jurisdiction of its
own, and that the supreme jurisdiction alone belonged to Athens. Can
it, indeed, be supposed that persons would have travelled from Rhodes
or Byzantium, for the sake of a lawsuit of fifty or a hundred
drachmas? In private suits a sum of money was probably fixed, above
which the inferior court of the allies had no jurisdicti
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