Plutarch, The Parallel Lives, Vol III.

 

The Life of Pericles

 

 

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34 However, Pericles was moved by no such things, but gently and silently underwent the ignominy and the hatred, and, sending out an armament of a hundred ships against the Peloponnesus, did not himself sail with it, but remained behind, keeping the city under watch and ward and well in hand, until the Peloponnesians withdrew. Then, by way of soothing the multitude, who, in spite of their enemies' departure, were distressed over the war, he won their favour by distributions of moneys and proposed allotments of conquered lands; the Aeginetans, for instance, he drove out entirely, and parcelled out their island among the Athenians by lot. And some consolation was to be had from what their enemies suffered. 2 For the expedition around the Peloponnesus ravaged much territory and sacked villages and small cities, while Pericles himself, by land, invaded the Megarid and razed it all. Wherein it was also evident that though their enemies did the Athenians much harm by land, they suffered much too at their hands by sea, and therefore would not have protracted the war to such a length, but would have speedily given up, just as Pericles prophesied in the beginning, had not a terrible visitation from heaven thwarted human calculations.

3 As it was, in the first place, a pestilential destruction fell upon them and devoured clean the prime of their youth and power. It weakened p101them in body and in spirit, and made them altogether wild against Pericles, so that, for all the world as the mad will attack a physician or a father, so they, in the delirium of the plague, attempted to do him harm, persuaded thereto by his enemies. 4 These urged that the plague was caused by the crowding of the rustic multitudes together into the city, where, in the summer season, many were huddled together in small dwellings and stifling barracks, and compelled to lead a stay-at‑home and inactive life, instead of being in the pure and open air of heaven as they were wont. They said that Pericles was responsible for this, who, because of the war, had poured the rabble from the country into the walled city, and then gave that mass of men no employment whatever, but suffered them, thus penned up like cattle, to fill one another full of corruption, and provided them no change or respite.

35 Desiring to heal these evils, and at the same time to inflict some annoyance upon the enemy, he manned a hundred and fifty ships of war, and, after embarking many brave hoplites and horsemen, was on the point of putting out to sea, affording great hope to the citizens, and no less fear to the enemy in consequence of so great a force. But when the ships were already manned, and Pericles had gone aboard his own trireme, it chanced that the sun was eclipsed^f and darkness came on, and all were thoroughly frightened, looking upon it as a great portent. 2 Accordingly, seeing that his steersman was timorous and utterly perplexed, held up his cloak before the man's eyes, and, thus covering them, asked him if he thought it anything dreadful, or portentous of anything dreadful. "No," said the steersman. "How then," said Pericles, "is yonder event different from this, except that it is something rather larger than my cloak which has caused the obscurity?" At any rate, this tale is told in the schools of philosophy.

3 Well, then, on sailing forth, Pericles seems to have accomplished nothing worthy of his preparations, but after laying siege to sacred Epidaurus, which awakened a hope that it might be captured, he had no such good fortune, because of the plague. Its fierce onset destroyed not only the Athenians themselves, but also those who, in any manner soever, had dealings with their forces. 4 The Athenians being exasperated against him on this account, he tried to appease and encourage them. He did not, however, succeed in allaying their wrath, nor yet in changing their purposes, before they got their hostile ballots into their hands, became masters of his fate, stripped him of his command, and punished him with a fine. The amount of this was fifteen talents, according to those who give the lowest, and fifty, according to those who give the highest figures. The public prosecutor mentioned in the records of the case was Cleon, as Idomeneus says, but according to Theophrastus it was Simmias, and Heracleides Ponticus mentions Lacratides.