FROM THE CLOSE OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION TO THE BE- I. On some of the Charges brought against Pericles II. On the Author of the Oration against Alcibiades III. A Comparison of the Accounts given by Thucy- $ FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRTY YEARS' TRUCE XVIII. Policy of Pericles described. Increase of tribute. - Authority THE Thirty Years' Truce, though concluded upon terms seemingly disadvantageous to Athens, afforded an interval of repose highly favourable to her prosperity, only interrupted by one successful effort. It was during this period that Pericles was enabled to carry out his views into action, with the amplest means that the state could furnish at his command, and with scarcely a breath of opposition to divert him from his purpose. The history of Athens during the continuance of the Thirty Years' Truce may be pro CHAP. perly comprised in a general survey of his adminis XVIII. tration. Pericles, to describe his policy in a few words, had two objects mainly in view throughout his public life: to extend and strengthen the Athenian empire, and to raise the confidence and self-esteem of the Athenians themselves to a level with the lofty position which they occupied. Almost all his measures may clearly be referred to one or the other of these ends. There are only a few as to which it may seem doubtful whether they can be traced to any higher aim than that of establishing his own power, and whether they must not be regarded as a sacrifice by which, at the expence of his principles, he purchased that popularity which was the indispensable condition of success in all his undertakings. The condition of the greater part of the states which composed the Athenian confederacy had, as we have seen, undergone a great change in the time of Cimon, and through his management. A very important innovation, which visibly altered the relation before subsisting between Athens and her allies, appears to have been effected even in the lifetime of Aristides. We learn from Plutarch, that a proposal was then made, nominally at least by the Samians, to transfer the treasury of the confederacy from Delos to Athens. Aristides is said to have admitted the expediency of the change for the interest of Athens, but to have condemned it as unjust.1 Perhaps he was aware that the Samians, who made this application, did not really express the wishes of their countrymen, who can scarcely have had any motive for desiring what they proposed, and that they were only employed by the 1 This appears from Plut. Arist. 25., to have been the fact. But whether the turn given to the conduct of Aristides by Theophrastus, who represented him as recommending the measure in spite of its iniquity, is a sufficient ground for saying with Wachsmuth, 1. 2. p. 75., that he approved of it, may be doubted. He may either have said that it was unjust, but expedient, or that it was expedient, but unjust. XVIII. party at Athens who wished to carry the measure, to CHAP. take away the appearance of open violence. It is not quite certain, though most probable, that the objections of Aristides were overruled on this occasion; but at least the change was not long deferred. Those introduced by Cimon stript the weaker states one after another of their means of defence; and when Pericles came to the head of affairs, there probably remained but a few steps more to be taken to convert the confederacy into an empire over which Athens ruled as a despotic sovereign. It seems to have been he who raised the annual contributions of the allies from 460 talents, the amount at which they had been fixed by Aristides, to 6001, and who first accustomed the Athenians to exert a direct and engrossing authority over the states which had been deprived of their political independence, and to interfere with the concerns of their domestic administration. Beside her financial exactions, there were two ways in which Athens encroached on the rights of her subjects: one affecting their forms of government, the other the dispensation of justice. The establishment of a democratical constitution was not an invariable effect of their subjection, but it was a consequence which must in most cases have flowed from it, even without any interference on the part of the ruling state; and where an aristocratical party was permitted to prevail, it probably furnished a pretext for stricter inspection and heavier burdens. This however was but a slight grievance, in comparison with the regulation by which all trials of capital offences, and all cases involving property exceeding a certain low amount, were transferred from the cognizance of the local courts to Athenian tribunals. The advantage which the Athenians derived, as well from the fees of justice, as from the Still it does not appear what part of the additional 140 talents arose from the commutation of service for money, and whether those who had contributed to the 460 were now at all more heavily burdened than before. |