ath, without truce or armistice; that any
Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the
generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in
addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year;
and that Anthemokritus should be buried near the city gate leading into
the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.

Now, the Megarians say that they were not to blame for the murder of
Anthemokritus, and lay it upon Perikles and Aspasia, quoting the
hackneyed rhymes from the 'Acharnians,' of Aristophanes:

"Some young Athenians in their drunken play,
From Megara Simaetha stole away,
The men of Megara next, with angered soul,
Two of Aspasia's choicest harlots stole."

XXXI. How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers
agree in throwing on Perikles the blame of refusing to reverse the
decree. Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation, saying that
the demand was merely made in order to try him, and that any concessions
would have been regarded as a sign of weakness; while others say that he
treated the Lacedaemonians so cavalierly through pride and a desire to
show his own strength. But the worst motive of all, and that to which
most men attribute his conduct, was as follows: Pheidias, the sculptor,
was, as we have related, entrusted with the task of producing the statue
of the tutelary goddess of Athens. His intimacy with Perikles, with whom
he had great influence, gained for him many enemies, who, wishing to
experiment on the temper of the people towards Perikles himself, bribed
Menon, one of Pheidias's fellow-workmen, to seat himself in the
market-place as a suppliant who begged that he might receive protection
while he denounced and prosecuted Pheidias. The people took this man
under its protection, and Pheidias was prosecuted before the Senate. The
alleged charges of theft were not proved, for Pheidias, by the advice of
Perikles, had originally fashioned the golden part of the statue in
such a manner that it could all be taken off and weighed, and this
Perikles bade the prosecutor do on this occasion. But the glory which
Pheidias obtained by the reality of his work made him an object of envy
and hatred, especially when in his sculpture of the battle with the
Amazons on the shield of the goddess he introduced his own portrait as a
bald-headed old man lifting a great stone with both hands, and also a
very fine repr