On one occasion, early in his public career, he was berated by a bully in the streets. Pericles made no answer, but went quietly about his business. The man followed him, continuing his abuse--followed him clear to the door of his house. It being dark, Pericles ordered one of his servants to procure a torch, light the man home and see that no harm befell him.

The splendor of his intellect and the sublime strength of his will are shown in that small things did not distress him. He was building the Parthenon and making Athens the wonder of the world: this was enough.

* * * * *

The Greeks at their best were barbarians; at their worst, slaves. The average intelligence among them was low; and the idea that they were such a wonderful people has gained a foothold simply because they are so far off. The miracle of it all is that such sublimely great men as Pericles, Phidias, Socrates and Anaxagoras should have sprung from such a barbaric folk. The men just named were as exceptional as was Shakespeare in the reign of Elizabeth. That the masses had small appreciation of these men is proven in the fact that Phidias and Anaxagoras died in prison, probably defeating their persecutors by suicide. Socrates drank the cup of hemlock, and Pericles, the one man who had made Athens immortal, barely escaped banishment and death by diverting attention from himself to a foreign war. The charge against both Pericles and Phidias was that of "sacrilege." They said that Pericles and Phidias should be punished because they had placed their pictures on a sacred shield.

Humanity's job-lot was in the saddle, and sought to wound Pericles by attacking his dearest friends: so his old teacher, Anaxagoras, was made to die; his beloved helper, Phidias, the greatest sculptor the world has ever known, suffered a like fate; and his wife, Aspasia, was humiliated by being dragged to a public trial, where the eloquence of Pericles alone saved her from a malefactor's death; and it is said that this was the only time when Pericles lost his "Olympian calm."

The son of Pericles and Aspasia was one of ten generals executed because they failed to win a certain battle. The scheme of beheading unsuccessful soldiers was not without its advantages, and in some ways is to be commended; but the plan reveals the fact that the Greeks had so little faith in their leaders that the threat of death was deemed necessary to make them do their duty. This son of Pericles was declared illegitimate by law; another law was passed declaring him legitimate: and finally his head was cut off, all as duly provided in the statutes. Doesn't this make us wonder what this world would have been without its lawmakers? The particular offense of Anaxagoras was that he said Jove occasionally sent thunder and lightning with no thought of Athens in mind. The same subject is up for discussion yet, but no special penalty is provided by the State as to conclusions.

The citizens of Greece in the time of Pericles were given over to two things which were enough to damn any individual and any nation--idleness and superstition. The drudgery was done by slaves; the idea that a free citizen should work was preposterous; to be useful was a disgrace. For a time Pericles dissipated their foolish thought, but it kept cropping out. To speak disrespectfully of the gods was to invite death, and the philosophers who dared discuss the powers of Nature or refer to a natural religion were safe only through the fact that their language was usually so garlanded with the flowers of poesy that the people did not comprehend its import.

Very early in the reign of Pericles a present of forty thousand bushels of wheat had been sent from the King of Egypt; at least it was called a present--probably it was an exacted tribute. This wheat was to be distributed among the free citizens of Athens, and accordingly when the cargo arrived there was a fine scramble among the people to show that they were free. Everybody produced a certificate and demanded wheat.

Some time before this Pericles had caused a law to be passed providing that in order to be a citizen a man must be descended from a father and a mother who were both Athenians. This law was aimed directly at Themistocles, the predecessor of Pericles, whose mother was an alien. It is true the mother of Themistocles was an alien, but her son was Themistocles. The law worked and Themistocles was declared a bastardicus and banished.

Before unloading our triremes of wheat, let the fact be stated that laws aimed at individuals are apt to prove boomerangs. "Thee should build no dark cells," said Elizabeth Fry to the King of France, "for thy children may occupy them." Some years after Pericles had caused this law to be passed defining citizenship, he loved a woman who had the misfortune to be born at Miletus. According to his own law the marriage of Pericles to this woman was not legal--she was only his slave, not his wife. So finally Pericles had to go before the people and ask for the repeal of the law that he had made, in order that his own children might be made legitimate. Little men in shovel hats and knee-breeches who hotly fume against the sin of a man marrying his deceased wife's sister are usually men whose wives are not deceased, and have no sisters.

The wheat arrived at the Piraeus, and the citizens jammed the docks. The slaves wore sleeveless tunics. The Greeks were not much given to that absurd plan of cutting off heads--they simply cut off sleeves. This meant that the man was a worker--the rest affected sleeves so long that they could not work, somewhat after the order of the Chinese nobility, who wear their finger-nails so long they can not use their hands. "To kill a bird is to lose it," said Thoreau. "To kill a man is to lose him," said the Greeks.

"You should have your sleeves cut off," said some of the citizens to others, with a bit of acerbity, as they crowded the docks for their wheat.

The talk increased--it became louder.

Finally it was proposed that the distribution of wheat should be deferred until every man had proved his pedigree.

The ayes had it.

The result was that on close scrutiny five thousand supposed citizens had a blot on their 'scutcheon. The property of these five thousand men was immediately confiscated and the men sold into slavery. The total number of free men, women and children in the city of Athens was about seventy-five thousand, and of the slaves or helots about the same, making the total population of the city about one hundred fifty thousand.

We have heard so much of "the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome," that we are, at times, apt to think the world is making progress backward. But let us all stand erect and lift up our hearts in thankfulness that we live in the freest country the world has ever known. Wisdom is not monopolized by a few; power is not concentrated in the hands of a tyrant; knowledge need not express itself in cipher; to work is no longer a crime or a disgrace.

We have superstition yet, but it is toothless: we can say our say without fear of losing our heads or our sleeves. We may lose a few customers, and some subscribers may cancel, but we are not in danger of banishment; and that attenuated form of ostracism which consists in neglecting to invite the offender to a four-o'clock tea has no terrors.

Bigotry is abroad, but it has no longer the power to throttle science; the empty threat of future punishment and the offer of reward are nothing to us, since we perceive they are offered by men who haven't these things to give. The idea of war and conquest is held by many, but concerning it we voice our thoughts and write our views; and the fact that we perceive and point out what we believe are fallacies, and brand the sins of idleness and extravagance, is proof that light is breaking in the East. If we can profit by the good that was in Greece and avoid the bad, we have the raw material here, if properly used, to make her glory fade into forgetfulness by comparison.

Do not ask that the days of Greece shall come again--we now know that to live by the sword is to die by the sword, and the nation that builds on conquest builds on sand. We want no splendor fashioned by slaves--no labor driven by the lash, nor lured on through superstitious threat of punishment and offer of reward: we recognize that to own slaves is to be one.

Ten men built Athens. The passion for beauty that these men had may be ours, their example may inspire us, but to live their lives--we will none of them! Our lives are better--the best time the world has ever seen is now; and a better yet is sure to be. The night is past and gone--the light is breaking in the East!

* * * * *

Womanhood was not held in high esteem in Greece. To be sure, barbaric Sparta made a bold stand for equality, and almost instituted a gynecocracy, but the usual idea was that a woman's opinion was not worth considering. Hence the caricaturists of the day made sly sport of the love of Pericles and Aspasia. These two were intellectual equals, comrades; and that all of Pericles' public speeches were rehearsed to her, as his enemies averred, is probably true. "Aspasia has no time for society; she is busy writing a speech for her lord," said Aristophanes. Socrates used to visit Aspasia, and he gave it out as his opinion that Aspasia wrote the sublime ode delivered by Pericles on the occasion of his eulogy on the Athenian dead. The popular mind could not possibly comprehend how a great man could defer to a woman in important matters, and she be at once his wife, counselor, comrade, friend. Socrates, who had been taught by antithesis, understood it.