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

Oratory of Pericles 183
ters of less moment. One of these friends is said to have On the fall
of the Lounbeen
Ephialtes, who destroyed the power of the Council of cii of the
the Areopagus, "pouring out" as Plato the comic poet Ancklf^^'
said, "a full and unmixed draught of liberty for the citi- ^^"['.'^q^^^^'^
zens," under the influence of which the poets of the 15s f-
time said that the Athenian people
"Nibbled at Euboea, like a horse that spurns the rein,
And wantonly would leap upon the islands in the main."
Wishing to adopt a style of speaking consonant with ^Jj^^^j^^*^
his haughty manner and lofty spirit, Pericles made free "oiymuse
of the instrument which Anaxagoras as it were put ^^^°"
into his hand, and often tinged his oratory with natural
philosophy. He far surpassed all others by using this
"lofty intelligence and power of universal consummation,"
^^^^- ^^'^ ^•
as the divine Plato calls it; in addition to his natural On Plato;
Anaent
advantages, adorning his oratory with apt
.
illustrations World, 2S8 f.
drawn from physical science.
For this reason some think that he was nicknamed the
Olympian; yet some refer this to his improvement of the
city by new and beautiful buildings, and others to his
power as a politician and a general.
It is not by any means
unlikely that these causes all combined to produce the
name.
Yet the comedies of the time, when they allude
to him, either in jest or earnest, always appear to think
that this name was given him because of his manner of
speaking, for they represent him as "thundering and
lightning" and "roUing fateful thunders from his
tongue."
A saying of Thucydides, the son of Melesias, has been
preserved, which jestingly testifies to the power of Pericles'
eloquence.
Thucydides was the leader of the conservative
party, and for a long time struggled to hold his own against
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