ther become extinct for want of
an heir. The provisions of the law were as follows:--Perikles many years
before, when he was at the height of his power and had children born to
him, as we have related, of legitimate birth, proposed a law that only
those born of an Athenian father and mother should be reckoned Athenian
citizens. But when the king of Egypt sent a present of forty thousand
_medimni_ of wheat to be divided among the citizens, many lawsuits arose
about the citizenship of men whose birth had never been questioned
before that law came into force, and many vexatious informations were
laid. Nearly five thousand men were convicted of illegitimacy of birth
and sold for slaves, while those who retained their citizenship and
proved themselves to be genuine Athenians amounted to fourteen thousand
and forty. It was indeed an unreasonable request that a law which had
been enforced in so many instances should now be broken in the person of
its own author, but Perikles's domestic misfortunes, in which he seemed
to have paid the penalty for his former haughtiness and pride, touched
the hearts of the Athenians so much that they thought his sorrows
deserving of their pity, and his request such as he was entitled to make
and they to grant in common charity, and they consented to his
illegitimate son being enrolled in his own tribe and bearing his own
name. This man was subsequently put to death by the people, together
with all his colleagues, for their conduct after the sea-fight at
Arginusae.

XXXVIII. After this it appears that Perikles was attacked by the plague,
not acutely or continuously, as in most cases, but in a slow wasting
fashion, exhibiting many varieties of symptoms, and gradually
undermining his strength. Theophrastus, in his treatise on Ethics,
discusses whether a man's character can be changed by disease, and
whether virtue depends upon bodily health. As an example, he quotes a
story that Perikles, when one of his friends came to visit him during
his sickness, showed him a charm hung round his neck, as a proof that he
must be indeed ill to submit to such a piece of folly. As he was now on
his deathbed, the most distinguished of the citizens and his surviving
friends collected round him and spoke admiringly of his nobleness and
immense power, enumerating also the number of his exploits, and the
trophies which he had set up for victories gained; for while in chief
command he had won no less than nine victories