τῆς δὲ πόλεως πειρωμένης τῶν ἄλλων στρατηγῶν εἰς τὸν πόλεμον καὶ ῥητόρων, ὡς δʼ οὐδεὶς βάρος ἔχων ἰσόρροπον οὐδʼ ἀξίωμα πρὸς τοσαύτην ἐχέγγυον ἡγεμονίαν ἐφαίνετο, ποθούσης ἐκεῖνον καὶ καλούσης ἐπὶ τὸ βῆμα καὶ τὸ στρατήγιον, ἀθυμῶν καὶ κείμενος οἴκοι διὰ τὸ πένθος ὑπʼ Ἀλκιβιάδου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἐπείσθη φίλων προελθεῖν.
The city made trial of its other generals and counsellors for the conduct of the war, but since no one appeared to have weight that was adequate or authority that was competent for such leadership, it yearned for Pericles, and summoned him back to the bema and the war-office. He was lying dejectedly at home because of his sorrow, but was persuaded by Alcibiades and his other friends to resume his public life.
ἀπολογησαμένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου τὴν ἀγνωμοσύνην πρὸς αὐτόν, ὑποδεξάμενος αὖθις τὰ πράγματα καὶ στρατηγὸς αἱρεθεὶς ᾐτήσατο λυθῆναι τὸν περὶ τῶν νόθων νόμον, ὃν αὐτὸς εἰσενηνόχει πρότερον, ὡς μὴ παντάπασιν ἐρημίᾳ διαδοχῆς τὸν οἶκον ἐκλίποι τοὔνομα καὶ τὸ γένος.
When the people had apologized for their thankless treatment of him, and he had undertaken again the conduct of the state, and been elected general, he asked for a suspension of the law concerning children born out of wedlock,—a law which he himself had formerly introduced,—in order that the name and lineage of his house might not altogether expire through lack of succession.
εἶχε δʼ οὕτω τὰ περὶ τὸν νόμον. ἀκμάζων ὁ Περικλῆς ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ πρὸ πάνυ πολλῶν χρόνων, καὶ παῖδας ἔχων, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, γνησίους, νόμον ἔγραψε μόνους Ἀθηναίους εἶναι τοὺς ἐκ δυεῖν Ἀθηναίων γεγονότας. ἐπεὶ δὲ τοῦ βασιλέως τῶν Αἰγυπτίων δωρεὰν τῷ δήμῳ πέμψαντος τετρακισμυρίους πυρῶν μεδίμνους ἔδει διανέμεσθαι τοὺς πολίτας, πολλαὶ μὲν ἀνεφύοντο δίκαι τοῖς νόθοις ἐκ τοῦ γράμματος ἐκείνου τέως διαλανθάνουσι καὶ παρορωμένοις, πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ συκοφαντήμασι περιέπιπτον.
The circumstances of this law were as follows. Many years before this, when Pericles was at the height of his political career and had sons born in wedlock, as I have said, he proposed a law that only those should he reckoned Athenians whose parents on both sides were Athenians. And so when the king of Egypt sent a present to the people of forty thousand measures of grain, and this had to be divided up among the citizens, there was a great crop of prosecutions against citizens of illegal birth by the law of Pericles, who had up to that time escaped notice and been overlooked, and many of them also suffered at the hands of informers.
ἐπράθησαν δʼ οὖν ἁλόντες ὀλίγῳ πεντακισχιλίων ἐλάττους, οἱ δὲ μείναντες ἐν τῇ πολιτείᾳ καὶ κριθέντες Ἀθηναῖοι μύριοι καὶ τετρακισχίλιοι καὶ τεσσαράκοντα τὸ πλῆθος ἐξητάσθησαν.
As a result, a little less than five thousand were convicted and sold into slavery, and those who retained their citizenship and were adjudged to be Athenians were found, as a result of this scrutiny, to be fourteen thousand and forty in number.
ὄντος οὖν δεινοῦ τὸν κατὰ τοσούτων ἰσχύσαντα νόμον ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ πάλιν λυθῆναι τοῦ γράψαντος, ἡ παροῦσα δυστυχία τῷ Περικλεῖ περὶ τὸν οἶκον, ὡς δίκην τινὰ δεδωκότι τῆς ὑπεροψίας καὶ τῆς μεγαλαυχίας ἐκείνης, ἐπέκλασε τοὺς Ἀθηναίους, καὶ δόξαντες αὐτὸν νεμεσητά τε παθεῖν ἀνθρωπίνων τε δεῖσθαι συνεχώρησαν ἀπογράψασθαι τὸν νόθον εἰς τοὺς φράτορας, ὄνομα θέμενον τὸ αὑτοῦ. καὶ τοῦτον μὲν ὕστερον ἐν Ἀργινούσαις καταναυμαχήσαντα Πελοποννησίους ἀπέκτεινεν ὁ δῆμος μετὰ τῶν συστρατήγων.
It was, accordingly, a grave matter, that the law which had been rigorously enforced against so many should now be suspended by the very man who had introduced it, and yet the calamities which Pericles was then suffering in his family life, regarded as a kind of penalty which he had paid for his arrogance and haughtiness of old, broke down the objections of the Athenians. They thought that what he suffered was by way of retribution, and that what he asked became a man to ask and men to grant, and so they suffered him to enroll his illegitimate son in the phratry-lists and to give him his own name. This was the son who afterwards conquered the Peloponnesians in a naval battle at the Arginusae islands, and was put to death by the people along with his fellow-generals.
τότε δὲ τοῦ Περικλέους ἔοικεν ὁ λοιμὸς λαβέσθαι λαβὴν οὐκ ὀξεῖαν, ὥσπερ ἄλλων, οὐδὲ σύντονον, ἀλλὰ βληχρᾷ τινι νόσῳ καὶ μῆκος ἐν ποικίλαις ἐχούσῃ μεταβολαῖς διαχρωμένην τὸ σῶμα σχολαίως καὶ ὑπερείπουσαν τὸ φρόνημα τῆς ψυχῆς.
At this time, it would seem, the plague laid hold of Pericles, not with a violent attack, as in the case of others, nor acute, but one which, with a kind of sluggish distemper that prolonged itself through varying changes, used up his body slowly and undermined the loftiness of his spirit.
ὁ γοῦν Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Ἠθικοῖς διαπορήσας εἰ πρὸς τὰς τύχας τρέπεται τὰ ἤθη καὶ κινούμενα τοῖς τῶν σωμάτων πάθεσιν ἐξίσταται τῆς ἀρετῆς, ἱστόρηκεν ὅτι νοσῶν ὁ Περικλῆς ἐπισκοπουμένῳ τινὶ τῶν φίλων δείξειε περίαπτον ὑπὸ τῶν γυναικῶν τῷ τραχήλῳ περιηρτημένον, ὡς σφόδρα κακῶς ἔχων ὁπότε καὶ ταύτην ὑπομένοι τὴν ἀβελτερίαν.
Certain it is that Theophrastus, in his Ethics, querying whether one’s character follows the bent of one’s fortunes and is forced by bodily sufferings to abandon its high excellence, records this fact, that Pericles, as he lay sick, showed one of his friends who was come to see him an amulet that the women had hung round his neck, as much as to say that he was very badly off to put up with such folly as that.
ἤδη δὲ πρὸς τῷ τελευτᾶν ὄντος αὐτοῦ,περικαθήμενοι τῶν πολιτῶν οἱ βέλτιστοι καὶ τῶν φίλων οἱ περιόντες λόγον ἐποιοῦντο τῆς ἀρετῆς καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως, ὅση γένοιτο, καὶ τὰς πράξεις ἀνεμετροῦντο καὶ τῶν τροπαίων τὸ πλῆθος· ἐννέα γὰρ ἦν ἃ στρατηγῶν καὶ νικῶν ἔστησεν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως.
Being now near his end, the best of the citizens and those of his friends who survived were sitting around him holding discourse of his excellence and power, how great they had been, and estimating all his achievements and the number of his trophies,—there were nine of these which he had set up as the city’s victorious general.
ταῦτα, ὡς οὐκέτι συνιέντος, ἀλλὰ καθῃρημένου τὴν αἴσθησιν αὐτοῦ, διελέγοντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους· ὁ δὲ πᾶσιν ἐτύγχανε τὸν νοῦν προσεσχηκώς, καὶ φθεγξάμενος εἰς μέσον ἔφη θαυμάζειν ὅτι ταῦτα μὲν ἐπαινοῦσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ μνημονεύουσιν, ἃ καὶ πρὸς τύχην ἐστὶ κοινὰ καὶ γέγονεν ἤδη πολλοῖς στρατηγοῖς, τὸ δὲ κάλλιστον καὶ μέγιστον οὐ λέγουσιν. οὐδεὶς γάρ, ἔφη, διʼ ἐμὲ τῶν ὄντων Ἀθηναίων μέλαν ἱμάτιον περιεβάλετο.
This discourse they were holding with one another, supposing that he no longer understood them but had lost consciousness. He had been attending to it all, however, and speaking out among them said he was amazed at their praising and commemorating that in him which was due as much to fortune as to himself, and which had fallen to the lot of many generals besides, instead of mentioning his fairest and greatest title to their admiration; for, said he, no living Athenian ever put on mourning because of me.
θαυμαστὸς οὖν ὁ ἀνὴρ οὐ μόνον τῆς ἐπιεικείας καὶ πρᾳότητος, ἣν ἐν πράγμασι πολλοῖς καὶ μεγάλαις ἀπεχθείαις διετήρησεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦ φρονήματος, εἰ τῶν αὑτοῦ καλῶν ἡγεῖτο βέλτιστον εἶναι τὸ μήτε φθόνῳ μήτε θυμῷ χαρίσασθαι μηδὲν ἀπὸ τηλικαύτης δυνάμεως, μηδὲ χρήσασθαί τινι τῶν ἐχθρῶν ὡς ἀνηκέστῳ.
So, then, the man is to be admired not only for his reasonableness and the gentleness which he maintained in the midst of many responsibilities and great enmities, but also for his loftiness of spirit, seeing that he regarded it as the noblest of all his titles to honor that he had never gratified his envy or his passion in the exercise of his vast power, nor treated any one of his foes as a foe incurable.
καί μοι δοκεῖ τὴν μειρακιώδη καὶ σοβαρὰν ἐκείνην προσωνυμίαν ἓν τοῦτο ποιεῖν ἀνεπίφθονον καὶ πρέπουσαν, οὕτως εὐμενὲς ἦθος καὶ βίον ἐν ἐξουσίᾳ καθαρὸν καὶ ἀμίαντον Ὀλύμπιον προσαγορεύεσθαι, καθάπερ τὸ τῶν θεῶν γένος ἀξιοῦμεν αἴτιον μὲν ἀγαθῶν, ἀναίτιον δὲ κακῶν πεφυκὸς ἄρχειν καὶ βασιλεύειν τῶν ὄντων, οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ποιηταὶ συνταράττοντες ἡμᾶς ἀμαθεστάταις δόξαις ἁλίσκονται τοῖς αὑτῶν μυθεύμασι,
And it seems to me that his otherwise puerile and pompous surname is rendered unobjectionable and becoming by this one circumstance, that it was so gracious a nature and a life so pure and undefiled in the exercise of sovereign power which were called Olympian, inasmuch as we do firmly hold that the divine rulers and kings of the universe are capable only of good, and incapable of evil. In this we are not like the poets, who confuse us with their ignorant fancies, and are convicted of inconsistency by their own stories,
τὸν μὲν τόπον, ἐν ᾧ τοὺς θεοὺς κατοικεῖν λέγουσιν, ἀσφαλὲς ἕδος καὶ ἀσάλευτον καλοῦντες, οὐ πνεύμασιν, οὐ νέφεσι χρώμενον, ἀλλʼ αἴθρᾳ μαλακῇ καὶ φωτὶ καθαρωτάτῳ τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ὁμαλῶς περιλαμπόμενον, ὡς τοιαύτης τινὸς τῷ μακαρίῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ διαγωγῆς μάλιστα πρεπούσης, αὐτοὺς δὲ τοὺς θεοὺς ταραχῆς καὶ δυσμενείας καὶ ὀργῆς ἄλλων τε μεστοὺς παθῶν ἀποφαίνοντες οὐδʼ ἀνθρώποις νοῦν ἔχουσι προσηκόντων. ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἴσως ἑτέρας δόξει πραγματείας εἶναι.
since they declare that the place where they say the gods dwell is a secure abode and tranquil, without experience of winds and clouds, but gleaming through all the unbroken time with the soft radiance of purest light,—implying that some such a manner of existence is most becoming to the blessed immortal; and yet they represent the gods themselves as full of malice and hatred and wrath and other passions which ill become even men of any sense. But this, perhaps, will be thought matter for discussion elsewhere.
τοῦ δὲ Περικλέους ταχεῖαν αἴσθησιν καὶ σαφῆ πόθον Ἀθηναίοις ἐνειργάζετο τὰ πράγματα. καὶ γὰρ οἱ ζῶντος βαρυνόμενοι τὴν δύναμιν ὡς ἀμαυροῦσαν αὐτούς, εὐθὺς ἐκ ποδῶν γενομένου πειρώμενοι ῥητόρων καὶ δημαγωγῶν ἑτέρων ἀνωμολογοῦντο μετριώτερον ἐν ὄγκῳ καὶ σεμνότερον ἐν πρᾳότητι μὴ φῦναι τρόπον·
The progress of events wrought in the Athenians a swift appreciation of Pericles and a keen sense of his loss. For those who, while he lived, were oppressed by a sense of his power and felt that it kept them in obscurity, straightway on his removal made trial of other orators and popular leaders, only to be led to the confession that a character more moderate than his in its solemn dignity, and more august in its gentleness, had not been created.
ἡ δʼ ἐπίφθονος ἰσχὺς ἐκείνη, μοναρχία λεγομένη καὶ τυραννὶς πρότερον, ἐφάνη τότε σωτήριον ἔρυμα τῆς πολιτείας γενομένη· τοσαύτη φθορὰ καὶ πλῆθος ἐπέκειτο κακίας τοῖς πράγμασιν, ἣν ἐκεῖνος ἀσθενῆ καὶ ταπεινὴν ποιῶν ἀπέκρυπτε καὶ κατεκώλυεν ἀνήκεστον ἐν ἐξουσίᾳ γενέσθαι.
That objectionable power of his, which they had used to call monarchy and tyranny, seemed to them now to have been a saving bulwark of the constitution, so greatly was the state afflicted by the corruption and manifold baseness which he had kept weak and grovelling, thereby covering it out of sight and preventing it from becoming incurably powerful.
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