nt. This he used
honorably and unswervingly for the public benefit, finding the people,
as a rule, willing to second the measures which he explained to them to
be necessary and to which he asked their consent, but occasionally
having to use violence, and to force them, much against their will, to
do what was expedient; like a physician dealing with some complicated
disorder, who at one time allows his patient innocent recreation, and at
another inflicts upon him sharp pains and bitter though salutary
draughts. Every possible kind of disorder was to be found among a people
possessing so great an empire as the Athenians, and he alone was able to
bring them into harmony by playing alternately upon their hopes and
fears, checking them when overconfident, and raising their spirits when
they were cast down and disheartened. Thus, as Plato says, he was able
to prove that oratory is the art of influencing men's minds, and to use
it in its highest application, when it deals with men's passions and
characters, which, like certain strings of a musical instrument, require
a skilful and delicate touch. The secret of his power is to be found,
however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory as in his
pure and blameless life, because he was so well known to be
incorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he made the city,
which was a great one, into the greatest and richest city of Greece, and
though he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns,
who were able to leave their kingdoms to their sons, yet Pericles did
not increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from his
father. For forty years he held the first place among such men as
Ephialtes, Leocrates, Myronides, Cimon, Tolmides, and Thucydides; and,
after the fall and banishment of Thucydides by ostracism, he united in
himself for five-and-twenty years all the various offices of state,
which were supposed to last only for one year; and yet during the whole
of that period proved himself incorruptible by bribes.

As the Lacedaemonians began to be jealous of the prosperity of the
Athenians, Pericles, wishing to raise the spirit of the people and to
make them feel capable of immense operations, passed a decree, inviting
all the Greeks, whether inhabiting Europe or Asia, whether living in
large cities or small ones, to send representatives to a meeting at
Athens to deliberate about the restoration of the Greek temples which
had be