n the pedestal as the workman of it; and
indeed the whole work in a manner was under his charge, and he had, as
we have said already, the oversight over all the artists and workmen,
through Pericles's friendship for him.

When the orators, who sided with Thucydides and his party, were at
one time crying out, as their custom was, against Pericles, as one who
squandered away public money and made havoc of the state revenues, he
rose in the open assembly and put the question to the people, whether
they thought that he had laid out much; and saying, "Too much, a great
deal," "Then," said he, "since it is so, let the cost not go to your
account, but to mine; and let the inscription upon the buildings stand
in my name." When they heard him say thus, whether it were out of a
surprise to see the greatness of his spirit, or out of emulation of the
glory of the works, they cried aloud, bidding him to spend on, and lay
out what he thought fit from the public purse, and to spare no cost,
till all were finished.

At length, coming to a final contest with Thucydides, which of the two
should ostracize the other out of the country, and, having gone through
this peril, he threw his antagonist out, and broke up the confederacy
that had been organized against him. So that now all schism and division
being at an end, and the city brought to evenness and unity, he got
all Athens and all affairs that pertained to the Athenians into his own
hands, their tributes, their armies and their galleys, the islands, the
sea, and their wide-extended power, partly over other Greeks and partly
over barbarians, and all that empire which they possessed, founded and
fortified upon subject nations and royal friendships and alliances.

After this he was no longer the same man he had been before, nor as tame
and gentle and familiar as formerly with the populace, so as readily
to yield to their pleasures and to comply with the desires of the
multitude, as a steersman shifts with the winds. Quitting that loose,
remiss, and, in some cases, licentious court of the popular will,
he turned those soft and flowery modulations to the austerity of
aristocratical and regal rule; but, employing this uprightly and
undeviatingly for the country's best interests, he was able generally
to lead the people along, with their own will and consent, by persuading
and showing them what was to be done.

The source of this predominance was not barely his power of language,
but, as