Ion, as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in
great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas
Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Perikles a mere
courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity
themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might
insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their
model.

VI. These were not the only advantages which Perikles gained from his
intimacy with Anaxagoras, but he seems to have learned to despise those
superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce in
those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about them,
refer them all to the immediate action of the gods. Knowledge of
physical science, while it puts an end to superstitious terrors,
replaces them by a sound basis of piety. It is said that once a ram with
one horn was sent from the country as a present to Perikles, and that
Lampon the prophet, as soon as he saw this strong horn growing out of
the middle of the creature's forehead, said that as there were two
parties in the state, that of Thucydides and that of Perikles, he who
possessed this mystic animal would unite the two into one. Anaxagoras
cut open the beast's skull, and pointed out that its brain did not fill
the whole space, but was sunken into the shape of an egg, and all
collected at that part from which the horn grew. At the time all men
looked with admiration on Anaxagoras, but afterwards, when Thucydides
had fallen, and all the state had become united under Perikles, they
admired Lampon equally.

There is, I imagine, no reason why both the prophet and the natural
philosopher should not have been right, the one discovering the cause,
and the other the meaning. The one considered why the horn grew so, and
for what reason; the other declared what it _meant_ by growing so, and
for what _end_ it took place. Those who say that when the cause of a
portent is found out the portent is explained away, do not reflect that
the same reasoning which explains away heavenly portents would also put
an end to the meaning of the conventional signals used by mankind. The
ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial
are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning.
But perhaps all this belongs to another subject.

VII. Perikles when young greatly feared the people. He had a certain
personal likeness