Pericles’ Career – 8

Today’s installment concludes Pericles,
our selection by Plutarch.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of eight thousand words. Congratulations!

Previously in Pericles.

Time: 444 BC
Place: Athens

A certain amount of relief also was experienced by reflecting upon the injuries which they were inflicting on the enemy; for the fleet as it sailed round Peloponnesus destroyed many small villages and cities and ravaged a great extent of country, while Pericles himself led an expedition into the territory of Megara and laid it all waste. By this it is clear that the allies, although they did much damage to the Athenians, yet suffered equally themselves and never could have protracted the war for such a length of time as it really lasted, but, as Pericles foretold, must soon have desisted had not Providence interfered and confounded human counsels. For now the pestilence fell among the Athenians and cut off the flower of their youth. Suffering both in body and mind they raved against Pericles, just as people when delirious with disease attack their fathers or their physicians. They endeavored to ruin him, urged on by his personal enemies, who assured them that he was the author of the plague, because he had brought all the country people into the city, where they were compelled to live during the heat of summer, crowded together in small rooms and stifling tents, living an idle life too and breathing foul air instead of the pure country breeze to which they were accustomed. The cause of this, they said, was the man who, when the war began, admitted the masses of the country people into the city and then made no use of them but allowed them to be penned up together like cattle and transmit the contagion from one to another, without devising any remedy or alleviation of their sufferings.

Hoping to relieve them somewhat and also to annoy the enemy, Pericles manned a hundred and fifty ships, placed on board, besides the sailors, many brave infantry and cavalry soldiers and was about to put to sea. The Athenians conceived great hopes and the enemy no less terror from so large an armament. When all was ready and Pericles himself had just embarked in his own trireme, an eclipse of the sun took place, producing total darkness and all men were terrified at so great a portent. Pericles sailed with the fleet but did nothing worthy of so great a force. He besieged the sacred city of Epidaurus, but, although he had great hopes of taking it, he failed on account of the plague, which destroyed not only his own men but every one who came in contact with them. After this he again endeavored to encourage the Athenians, to whom he had become an object of dislike. However, he did not succeed in pacifying them but they condemned him by a public vote to be general no more and to pay a fine which is stated at the lowest estimate to have been fifteen talents and at the highest fifty. This was carried, according to Idomeneus, by Cleon, but, according to Theophrastus, by Simmias; while Heraclides of Pontus says that it was effected by Lacratides.

He soon regained his public position, for the people’s outburst of anger was quenched by the blow they had dealt him, just as a bee leaves its sting in the wound; but his private affairs were in great distress and disorder, as he had lost many of his relatives during the plague, while others were estranged from him on political grounds. Yet he would not yield, nor abate his firmness and constancy of spirit because of these afflictions but was not observed to weep or mourn or attend the funeral of any of his relations, until he lost Paralus, the last of his legitimate offspring. Crushed by this blow, he tried in vain to keep up his grand air of indifference and when carrying a garland to lay upon the corpse he was overpowered by his feelings, so as to burst into a passion of tears and sobs, which he had never done before in his whole life.

Athens made trial of her other generals and public men to conduct her affairs but none appeared to be of sufficient weight or reputation to have such a charge intrusted to him. The city longed for Pericles and invited him again to lead its counsels and direct its armies; and he, although dejected in spirits and living in seclusion in his own house, was yet persuaded by Alcibiades and his other friends to resume the direction of affairs.

After this it appears that Pericles 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. As he was now on his death-bed, 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 for Athens.

Events soon made the loss of Pericles felt and regretted by the Athenians. Those who during his lifetime had complained that his power completely threw them into the shade, when after his death they had made trial of other orators and statesmen, were obliged to confess that with all his arrogance no man ever was really more moderate and that his real mildness in dealing with men was as remarkable as his apparent pride and assumption. His power, which had been so grudged and envied and called monarchy and despotism, now was proved to have been the saving of the State; such an amount of corrupt dealing and wickedness suddenly broke out in public affairs, which he before had crushed and forced to hide itself and so prevented its becoming incurable through impunity and license.

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