enerals at Mycale, while his mother, Agariste, was a descendant of
Clisthenes, who drove the sons of Pisistratus out of Athens, put an end
to their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirably
calculated to reconcile all parties and save the country. She dreamed
that she had brought forth a lion, and a few days afterward was
delivered of Pericles. His body was symmetrical, but his head was long,
out of all proportion; for which reason, in nearly all his statues he is
represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose,
to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called him
squill-head, and the comic poet Cratinus, in his play _Chirones_, says;

"From Chronos old and faction
Is sprung a tyrant dread,
And all Olympus calls him
The man-compelling head."

And again in the play of _Nemesis_:

"Come, hospitable Zeus, with lofty head."

Teleclides, too, speaks of him as sitting

"Bowed down
With a dreadful frown,
Because matters of state have gone wrong,
Until at last,
From his head so vast,
His ideas burst forth in a throng."

And Eupolis, in his play of _Demoi_, asking questions about each of the
great orators as they come up from the other world one after the other,
when at last Pericles ascends, says:

"The great headpiece of those below."

Most writers tell us that his tutor in music was Damon, whose name they
say should be pronounced with the first syllable short. Aristotle,
however, says that he studied under Pythoclides. This Damon, it seems,
was a sophist of the highest order, who used the name of music to
conceal this accomplishment from the world, but who really trained
Pericles for his political contests just as a trainer prepares an
athlete for the games. However, Damon's use of music as a pretext did
not impose upon the Athenians, who banished him by ostracism, as a
busybody and lover of despotism.

Pericles greatly admired Anaxagoras, and became deeply interested in
grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty style of
oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also an
imperturbable gravity of countenance and a calmness of demeanor and
appearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the
tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. These
advantages greatly impressed the people. The poet Ion, however, says
th