A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

l82 The Age of Pericles
On ostracism;
Ancient
World, 140 f.
He takes the
side of the
people.
The Salaminian
trireme
was
reserved for
carrying
official messages
and
important
officers and
embassies.
might be banished by ostracism,
and consequently held
aloof from politics, but proved himself a brave and daring
soldier in the wars. But when Aristeides was dead, Themistocles
banished, and Cimon generally absent on distant
campaigns, Pericles engaged in public affairs, taking the
popular side,
that of the poor and many against that of
the rich and few, quite contrary to his own feelings, which
were entirely aristocratic.
He feared, it seemed, that he might be suspected of
design to make himself tyrant, and seeing that Cimon took
the side of the nobility, and was much beloved by them,
he betook himself to the people, as a means of obtaining
safety for himself, and a strong party to combat that of
Cimon, He immediately altered his mode of life; was
never seen in any street except that which led to the
market-place and the national assembly, and declined all
invitations to dinner and such social gatherings, so utterly
that during the whole of his long political life he
never dined with one of his friends except when his first
cousin, Euryptolemus, was married.
a
On this occasion he
sat at table till the libations were poured, upon which he
at once got up and went away. For solemnity is wont
to unbend at festive gatherings, and a majestic demeanor
is hard to keep up when one is in familiar intercourse with
others. True virtue, indeed, appears more glorious the
more it is seen, and a really good man's Hfe is never so
much admired by the outside world as by his own intimate
friends.
But Pericles feared to make himself too common
even with the people, and only addressed them after long
intervals—not speaking upon every subject, and not
constantly addressing them, but as Critolaus says, keeping
himself like the Salaminian trireme for great crises, and
allowing his friends and the other orators to manage mat-