come forward in political
life. When he entered on public life Aristides had only recently died,
Themistocles was an exile, and Cimon was fighting the battles of his
country abroad. Although the family to which he belonged was good, it
did not rank among the first in either wealth or influence, yet so
transcendent were the abilities of Pericles that he rapidly rose to the
highest power in the state as the leader of the dominant democracy. The
sincerity of his attachment to the popular party has been questioned,
but without a shadow of evidence. At any rate, the measures which,
either personally or through his adherents, he brought forward and
caused to be passed, were always in favor of extending the privileges of
the poorer class of the citizens, and, if he diminished the spirit of
reverence for the ancient institutions of public life, he enlisted an
immense body of citizens on the side of law. He extended enormously, if
he did not originate, the practice of distributing gratuities among the
citizens for military service, for acting as dicast and in the Ecclesia
and the like, as well as for admission to the theatre--then really a
great school for manners and instruction. Pericles seems to have grasped
very clearly, and to have held as firmly, the modern radical idea, that
as the state is supported by the taxation of the body of the citizens,
it must govern with a view to general interests rather than to those of
a caste alone. About 463, Pericles, through the agency of his follower,
Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the influence of the oligarchy, by
causing the decree to be passed which deprived the Areopagus of its most
important political powers. Shortly after the democracy obtained another
triumph in the ostracism of Cimon (461). During the next few years the
political course pursued by Pericles is less clearly intelligible to us,
but it is safe to say that in general his attitude was hostile to the
desire for foreign conquest or territorial aggrandizement, so prevalent
among his ambitious fellow-citizens. Shortly after the battle of Tanagra
(457), in which he showed conspicuous courage, Pericles magnanimously
carried the measure for the recall of Cimon. His successful expeditions
to the Thracian Chersonese, and to Sinope on the Black Sea, together
with his colonies planted at Naxos, Andros, Oreus in Euboea, Brea in
Macedonia, and AEgina, as well as Thurii in Italy, and Amphipolis on the
Strymon, did much to extend