Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/122

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

fying his own intellectual needs, but rather from the point of view of a statesman—in order to strengthen the mental powers by which he aspired to guide the course of the city. Another quality which distinguished him was self-restraint. In pursuing his aims, he showed the highest degree of patience, moderation, and self-denial. The natural fire of his temperament, which flashed out at times in his oratory, was perfectly under the control of his judgment. His career may be divided into two parts. During the first, down to 444 B.C., Pericles appears as a party man,—as the leader of the reformers. From 444 B.C. to his death in 429 B.C. he occupies a position raised above party, and has the government of Athens virtually concentrated in his hands. Let us consider the nature of the reforms with which he was associated, or which he initiated, during the earlier part of his career. First of all, the Council of the Areopagus was deprived of certain general powers which rendered it a stronghold of the party opposed to change. Next, it was provided that the State should make a small payment to every citizen for each day on which he served as a juror in the law-courts, or attended the meetings of the public assembly. Also, that the State should supply to every citizen who required it the sum needful to procure his admission to the theatre at the public festivals. In modern eyes these measures may not seem very important. But in reality they constituted a revolution of the most momentous kind. In order to see this, we have only to recall a broad difference