esentation of Perikles, fighting with an Amazon. The
position of the hand, which was holding a spear before the face of
Perikles, was ingeniously devised as if to conceal the portrait, which,
nevertheless, could plainly be seen on either side of it. For this,
Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say
that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles.
At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an
immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to
provide for the wretch's safety.

XXXII. About the same time Aspasia was prosecuted for impiety, at the
suit of Hermippus, the comic playwright, who moreover accused her of
harbouring free-born Athenian ladies, with whom Perikles carried on
intrigues. Also Diopeithes proposed a decree, that prosecutions should
be instituted against all persons who disbelieved in religion, and held
theories of their own about heavenly phenomena. This was aimed at
Perikles through the philosopher Anaxagoras. As the people adopted this
decree, and eagerly listened to these slanderous accusations, another
decree was carried by Drakontides, that Perikles should lay the accounts
of his dealings with the public revenue before the Prytanes, and that
the judges should carry their suffrage from the altar in the Acropolis,
and go and determine the cause in the city. At the motion of Hagnon this
part of the decree was reversed, but he succeeded in having the action
conducted before fifteen hundred judges, in a form of trial which one
might call either one for theft, or taking of bribes, or for public
wrong-doing. Aspasia was acquitted, quite contrary to justice, according
to Aeschines, because Perikles shed tears and made a personal appeal to
the judges on her behalf. He feared that Anaxagoras would be convicted,
and sent him out of the city before his trial commenced. And now, as he
had become unpopular by means of Pheidias, he at once blew the war into
a flame, hoping to put an end to these prosecutions, and to restore his
own personal ascendancy by involving the State in important and
dangerous crises, in which it would have to rely for guidance upon
himself alone.

These are the causes which are assigned for his refusal to permit the
Athenians to make any concession to the Lacedaemonians, but the real
history of the transaction will never be known.

XXXIII. Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be