Envoys were sent with overtures of peace to Sparta, and
when these returned with no favourable answer, the storm of popular
fury grew more violent than ever. Pericles, who knew the temper of his
people, and had foreseen that some such outbreak would occur, remained
calm and unmoved. But wishing to allay the general excitement, and
bring back the citizens to a more reasonable view of their prospects,
he summoned an assembly, and addressed the multitude in terms of grave
and dignified rebuke. He reminded them that they themselves had voted
for war, and remonstrated against the unfairness of making him
responsible for their own decision. If war could have been avoided
without imperilling the very existence of their city, then that
decision was wrong; but if, as was the fact, peace could only have been
preserved by ruinous concessions, then his advice had been good, and
they had been right in following it. The welfare of the individual
citizen depended on the welfare of the community to which he belonged;
as long as that was secured, private losses could always be made good,
but public disaster meant private ruin. On this principle they had
acted two years before, when they determined to reject the demands of
Sparta. Why, then, were they now indulging in weak regrets, and turning
against him whom they had appointed as their chosen guide and adviser?
Was there anything in his character, any fact in his whole life, which
justified them in suspecting him of unworthy motives? Was he the man to
lead them astray, in order to save some selfish end—he, the great
Pericles, whose loyalty, eloquence, clear-sightedness, and
incorruptibility, had been proved in a public career of more than
thirty years? If any other course had been open to them, he would have
been to blame in counselling war; but the alternative was between that
and degradation. The immediate pressure of private calamity was
blinding them to the magnitude of the interests at stake—Athens, with
all her fond traditions, and all the lustre of her name. That they were
sure of victory he had already declared to them on many infallible
grounds. But seeing them so sunk in despair, he would speak in a tone
of loud assurance, and boldly assert a fact which they seemed to have
overlooked. They were lords of the sea, absolute masters, that was to
say, of half the world! Let them keep a firm grasp on this empire, and
they would soon recover those pretty ornaments of empire—their gardens
and their vineyards—which they held so dear: but, that once
relinquished, they would lose all. Surely this knowledge should inspire
them with a lofty contempt of their foes, a contempt grounded, not on
ignorance or shallow enthusiasm, but on rational calculation. They
could not now descend from the eminence on which they stood. Athens,
who had blazed so long in unrivalled splendour before the eyes of the
world, dared not suffer her lustre to be abated: for her, obscurity
meant extinction. Let them keep this in mind, and not listen to
counsels of seeming prudence and moderation, which were suicidal in a
ruling state. All their calamities, except the plague, were the
foreseen results of their own decision. Now was the time to display
their known courage and patience. Let them think of the glory of
Athens, and her imperial fame.
This memorable speech, the last recorded utterance of Pericles, had the desired effect. It was resolved to continue the war, and no further embassies were sent to Sparta. But resentment still smouldered in the hearts of the Athenians against their great statesman. How fearful was the contrast between the high hopes with which they had embarked in this struggle, and the scenes of horror and desolation which lay around them! From the walls they could see their trampled fields, their ravaged plantations, and the blackened ruins of their homes. Within, the pestilence still raged undiminished, and the city was filled with sounds and sights of woe. Under the pressure of these calamities the ascendency of Pericles went through a brief period of eclipse, and he was condemned to pay a fine. Soon, however, he recovered all his influence, and remained at the head of affairs until his death, which occurred in the autumn of the following year.
Pericles is the representative figure in the golden age of Athenian greatness, the most perfect example of that equable and harmonious development in every faculty of body and mind which was the aim of Greek civic life at its best. As an orator, he was probably never equalled, and the effect of his eloquence has found immortal expression in the lines of his contemporary Eupolis.