achieved. Meanwhile a Spartan army invaded Attica and marched to the neighborhood of Eleusis. Having lost much of her empire, with a fair prospect of losing all of it if hostilities continued, Athens concluded a thirty years' truce with Sparta and her allies, by the terms of which she abandoned her conquests in the Peloponnesus, and Megara became an ally of Sparta (445 B.C.)

THE "AGE OF PERICLES."

With the close of the Persian contest, and the beginning of the Thirty Years' truce, properly begins what has been termed the "Age of Pericles"--the inauguration of a new and important era of Athenian greatness and renown. Having won the highest military honors and political ascendancy, Athens now took the lead in intellectual progress. Themistocles and Cimon had restored to Athens all that of which Xerxes had despoiled it--the former having rebuilt its ruins, and the latter having given to its public buildings a degree of magnificence previously unknown. But Pericles surpassed them both:

He was the ruler of the land When Athens was the land of fame; He was the light that led the band When each was like a living flame; The centre of earth's noblest ring, Of more than men the more than king.

Yet not by fetter nor by spear His sovereignty was held or won: Feared--but alone as freemen fear; Loved--but as freemen love alone; He waved the sceptre o'er his kind By nature's first great title--mind! --CROLY.

Orator and philosopher, as well as statesman and general, Pericles had the most lofty views. "Athens," says a modern writer, "was to become not only the capital of Greece, but the center of art and refinement, and, at the same time, of those democratical theories which formed the beau ideal of the Athenian notions of government." Athens became the center and capital of the most polished communities of Greece; she drew into a focus all the Grecian intellect, and she obtained from her dependents the wealth to administer the arts, which universal traffic and intercourse taught her to appreciate. The treasury of the state being placed in the hands of Pericles, he knew no limit to expenditure but the popular will, which, fortunately for the glories of Grecian art, kept pace with the vast conceptions of the master designer. Most of those famous structures that crowned the Athenian Acropolis, or surrounded its base, were either built or adorned by his direction, under the superintendence of the great sculptor, Phidias. The Parthenon, the Ode'um, the gold and ivory statue of the goddess Minerva, and the Olympian Jupiter--the latter two the work of the great sculptor himself--were alone sufficient to immortalize the "Age of Pericles." Of these miracles of sculpture and of architecture, as well as of the literature of this period, we shall speak farther in a subsequent place.

Of the general condition and appearance of Athens during the fourteen years that the Thirty Years' Truce was observed, HAYGARTH gives us the following poetical description:

All the din of war Was hushed to rest. Within a city's walls, Beneath a marble portico, were seen Statesmen and orators, in robes of peace, Holding discourse. The assembled multitude Sat in the crowded theatre, and bent To hear the voice of gorgeous Tragedy Breathing, in solemn verse, or ode sublime, Her noble precepts. The broad city's gates Poured forth a mingled throng--impatient steeds Champing their bits, and neighing for the course: Merchants slow driving to the busy port Their ponderous wains: Religion's holy priests Leading her red-robed votaries to the steps Of some vast temple: young and old, with hands Crossed on their breasts, hastening to walks and shades Suburban, where some moralist explained The laws of mind and virtue. On a rock A varied group appeared: some dragged along The rough-hewn block; some shaped it into form; Some reared the column, or with chisel traced Forms more than human; while Content sat near, And cheered with songs the toil of Industry.

But, as the poet adds,

Soon passed this peaceful pageant: War again Brandished his bloody lance--

and then began that dismal period between the "Age of Pericles" and the interference of the Romans--embracing the three Peloponnesian wars, the rising power of Macedonia under Philip of Macedon, the wars of Alexander and the contentions that followed--known as the period of the civil convulsions of Greece.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS, AND THE FALL OF ATHENS.

CAUSES OF THE FIRST WAR.

The various successful schemes of Pericles for enriching and extending the power of Athens were regarded with fear and jealousy by Sparta and her allies, who were only waiting for a reasonable excuse to renew hostilities. The opportunity came in 435 B.C. Corinth, the ally of Sparta, had become involved in a war with Corcy'ra, one of her colonies, when the latter applied to Athens for assistance. Pericles persuaded the Athenians to grant the assistance, and a small fleet was dispatched to Corcyra. The engagement that ensued, in which the Athenian ships bore a part --the greatest contest, Thucydides observes, that had taken place between Greeks to that day--was favorable to the Corinthians; but the sight of a larger Athenian squadron advancing toward the scene of action caused the Corinthians to retreat. This first breach of the truce was soon followed by another. Potidæ'a, a Corinthian colony, but tributary to Athens, revolted, on account of some unjust demands that the Athenians had enforced against it, and claimed and obtained the assistance of the Corinthians. Thus, in two instances, were Athens and Corinth, though nominally at peace, brought into conflict as open enemies.

THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA.--THE PERSECUTION OF PERICLES.

The Lacedæmonians meanwhile called a meeting of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Sparta, at which Ægina, Meg'ara, and other states made their complaints against Athens. It was also attended by envoys from Athens, who seriously warned it not to force Athens into a struggle that would be waged for its very existence. But a majority of the Confederacy were of the opinion that Athens had violated her treaties, and the result of the deliberations was a declaration of war against her. Not with any real desire for peace, but in order to gain time for her preparations before the declaration was made public, Sparta opened negotiations with Athens; but her preliminary demands were of course refused, while her ultimatum, that Athens should restore to the latter's allies their independence, was met with a like demand by the Athenians --that no state in Peloponnesus should be forced to accommodate itself to the principles in vogue at Sparta, "Let this be our answer," said Pericles, in closing his speech in the Athenian assembly: "We have no wish to begin war, but whosoever attacks us, him we mean to repel; for our guiding principle ought to be no other than this: that the power of that state which our fathers made great we will hand down undiminished to our posterity." The advice of Pericles was adopted, all farther negotiations were thereupon concluded, and Athens prepared for war.

Although the political authority of Pericles was now at its height, and his services were receiving unwonted public recognition, he had many enemies among all classes of citizens, who made his position for a time extremely hazardous. These at first attacked his friends--Phidias, Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and others--who were prominent representatives of his opinions and designs. The former was falsely accused of theft, in having retained for himself a part of the gold furnished to him for the golden robe of Athene Par'thenos, and of impiety for having reproduced his own features in one of the numerous figures on the shield of the goddess. He was cast into prison, where he died before his trial was concluded. Anaxagoras, having exposed himself to the penalties of a decree by which all who abjured the current religious views were to be indicted and tried as state criminals, barely escaped with his life; while Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, charged with impiety and base immorality, was only saved by the eloquence and tears of the great statesman, which flowed freely and successfully in her behalf before the jury. Finally, Pericles was attacked in person. He was accused of a waste of the public moneys, and was commanded to render an exact account of his expenditures. Although he came forth victorious from this and all other attacks, it is evident, as one historian observes, that "the endeavors of his enemies did not fail to exercise a certain influence upon the masses; and this led Pericles, who believed that war was in any case inevitable, to welcome its speedy commencement, as he hoped that the common danger would divert public attention from home affairs, render harmless the power of his adversaries, strengthen patriotic feeling, and make manifest to the Athenians their need of his services."

* * * * *

THE FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

On the side of Sparta was arrayed the whole of Peloponnesus, except Argos and Acha'ia, together with the Megarians, Phocians, Locrians, Thebans, and some others; while the allies of Athens were the Thessalians, Acarnanians, Messenians, Platæans, Chi'ans, Lesbians, her tributary towns in Thrace and Asia Minor, and all the islands north of Crete with two exceptions--Me'los and The'ra. Hostilities were precipitated by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon Platæa in 431 B.C.; and before the close of the same year a Spartan army of sixty thousand ravaged Attica, and sat down before the very gates of Athens, while the naval forces of the Athenians desolated the coasts of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans were soon called from Attica to protect their homes, and Pericles himself, at the lead of a large force, spread