CXLV.

ASPASIA TO CLEONE.

OPHOCLES left me about an hour

ago.

Hearing that he was with Pericles on business, I sent to request he would favour me with a visit when he was disengaged. After he had taken a seat, I entreated him to pardon me, expressing a regret that we hardly ever saw him, knowing as I did that no person could so ill withstand the regrets of the ladies. I added a hope that, as much for my sake as for the sake of Pericles, he would now and then steal an hour from the Muses in our behalf.

"Lady!" said he," it would only be changing the place of assignation."

"I shall begin with you," said I, "just as if I had a right to be familiar, and desire of you to explain the meaning of a chorus in King Edipus, which, although I have read the tragedy many times, and have never failed to be present at the representation, I do not quite comprehend."

I took up a volume from the table.. "No," said I, "this is Electra,1 give me the other." We unrolled it together.

"Here it is: what is the meaning of these words about the Laws!"2

[1st ed., "Electra, my favourite."]

[2 In Professor Jebb's translation the passage referred to runs as follows: "May destiny still find me winning the

He looked over them, first without opening his lips; then he read them in a low voice to himself; and then, placing the palm of his left hand against his forehead,

"Well! I certainly did think I understood it at the time I wrote it."

Cleone! if you could see him you would fall in love with him. Fifteen olympiads have not quite run away with all his youth. What a noble presence! what an open countenance ! what a brow! what a mouth! what a rich harmonious voice! what a heart, full of passion and of poetry!

CXLVI.

REPLY OF PERICLES

To the accusation of Cleon.1

HERE is a race of men, (and they

appear to have led colonies into many lands,) whose courage is always in an inverse ratio to their

danger, There is also a race who deem that a benefit done to another is an injury done to

praise of reverent purity in all words and deeds sanctioned by those laws of range sublime, called into life throughout the high clear heaven whose father is Olumpos alone; their parent was no race of mortal men, no, nor shall oblivion ever lay them to sleep; a mighty god is in them and he grows not old."-O. T. 863.]

[1 According to Plutarch the charges brought by Cleon against Pericles were connected with the ill success of an

them. Would you affront them, speak well of their friends; would you deprive them of repose, labour and watch incessantly for their country.

Cleon! in all your experience, in all the territories you have visited, in all the cities and islands you have conquered for us, have you never met with any such people? And yet,

O generous Cleon! I have heard it hinted that the observation is owing to you.

Were my life a private one, were my services done toward my friends alone, had my youth been exempt as yours hath been from difficulty and peril, I might never have displeased you; I might never have been cited to defend my character against the foulest of imputations. O Athenians! let me recall your attention to every word that Cleon has uttered. I know how difficult is the task, where so much dust is blown about by so much wind. The valorous Cleon has made your ears tingle and ring with Harmodius and Aristogiton. I am ignorant which of the two he would take for imitation, the handsomer or the braver. He stalks along with great bustle and magnificence, but he shows the dagger too plainly: he neglects to carry it in myrtle.

In your astonishment at this sudden procedure, there are doubtless many of you who are unable expedition led by him against Epidaurus; "Nor could the Athenians be satisfied until they had shown themselves masters by voting that he should be deprived of the command, and pay a fine which, by the lowest account, was fifteen talents; some make it fifty. The person that carried on the prosecution against him was Cleon, as Idomeneus tells us." -Langhorne's Plutarch, Pericles.]

to comprehend the very title of the denunciation. Let me then tell you what it is.

Pericles, son of Xanthippus (may all Greece, hear it! may every herald in every city proclaim it at every gate!) Pericles, son of Xanthippus is accused of embezzling the public money, collected, reserved, and set apart, for the building and decoration of the Parthenon. The accuser is Cleon, son of Clearetus.

The scribe has designated the father of our friend by this name, in letters very legible, otherwise I should have suspected it was the son of Cligenes, the parasite of the wealthy, the oppressor of the poor, the assailer of the virtuous, and the ridicule of all. Charges more substantial might surely be brought against me, and indeed were threatened. But never shall I repent of having, by my advice, a little decreased the revenues of the common-wealth, in lowering the price of admission to the theatres, and in offering to the more industrious citizens, out of the public treasury, the trifle requisite for this enjoyment. In the theatre, let them see before them the crimes and the calamities of Power, the vicissitudes of Fortune, and the sophistries of the Passions. Let it be there, and there only, that the just man suffers, and that murmurs are heard against the dispensations of the Gods.

But I am forgetting the accusation. Will Cleon do me the favour to inform you, in what place I have deposited, or in what manner I have spent, the money thus embezzled? Will Cleon tell you that I alone had the custody of it; or that

I had any thing at all to do in the making up of the accounts? Will Cleon prove to you that I am now richer than I was thirty years ago, excepting in a portion of the spoil, won bravely by the armies you decreed I should command; such a portion as the laws allow, and the soldiers carry to their general with triumphant acclamations. Cleon has yet to learn all this; certainly his wealth is derived from no such sources; far other acclamations does Cleon court; those of the idle, the dissolute, the malignant, the cowardly, and the false. But if he seeks them in Athens, and not beyond, his party is small indeed, and your indignation will drown their voices. What need have I of pilfer and peculation? Am I avaricious? am I prodigal? Does the indigent citizen, does the wounded soldier, come.to my door and return unsatisfied? Point at me, Cleon! and tell your friends to mark that. Let them mark it; but for imitation, not for calumny. Let them hear for they are idle enough, whence I possess the means of relieving the unfortunate, raising the dejected, and placing men of worth and genius (too often in that number!) where all their fellow citizens may distinguish them. My father died in my childhood; careful guardians superintended it, managing my affairs with honesty and diligence. The earliest of my ancestors, of whom any thing remarkable is recorded, was Cleisthenes,1 whom

[ Cleisthenes, the ancestor of Pericles, was Tyrant of Sicyon. The Amphictyonic council appointed him with Solon to command in the war against Cirrha.-Pausanias x. 37. For the story of the marriage of Agarista and the curious conduct of Hippoclides on that occasion, see Herodolus, vi. 126.]