s pulled down their walls, and seized their
shipping, and set a fine of a large sum upon them, part of which they
paid down at once, and they agreed to bring in the rest by a certain
time, and gave hostages for security. Pericles, however, after the
reduction of Samos, returning back to Athens, took care that those who
died in the war should be honorably buried, and made a funeral harangue,
as the custom is, in their commendation at their graves, for which he
gained great admiration. As he came down from the stage on which he
spoke, all the women except Elpinice, the aged sister of Cimon, came
out and complimented him, taking him by the hand, and crowning him with
garlands and ribbons, like a victorious athlete in the games.

After this was over, the Peloponnesian war beginning to break out in
full tide, he advised the people to send help to the Corcyraeans, who
were attacked by the Corinthians, and to secure to themselves an island
possessed of great naval resources, since the Peloponnesians were
already all but in actual hostilities against them. Archidamus, the
king of the Lacedaemonians, endeavoring to bring the greater part of the
complaints and matters in dispute to a fair determination, and to pacify
and allay the heats of the allies, it is very likely that the war would
not upon any other grounds of quarrel have fallen upon the Athenians,
could they have been prevailed upon to be reconciled with the
inhabitants of Megara.

The true occasion of the quarrel is not easy to find out. The worst
motive of all, which is confirmed by most witnesses, is to the following
effect. Phidias the Moulder had, as has before been said, undertaken
to make the statue of Athena. Now he, being admitted to friendship
with Pericles, and a great favorite of his, had many enemies upon this
account, who envied and maligned him; and they, to make trial in a case
of his what kind of judges the commons would prove, should there be
occasion to bring Pericles himself before them, having tampered with
Menon, one who had been a workman with Phidias, stationed him in the
marketplace, with a petition desiring public security upon his discovery
and impeachment of Phidias. The people admitting the man to tell his
story, and, the prosecution proceeding in the assembly, there was
nothing of theft or cheat proved against him; for Phidias, from the very
first beginning, by the advice of Pericles, had so wrought and wrapt the
gold that was used in the w