Greece -- History; Greece -- Politics and government; Imperialism
had neither high salaried judges nor exacting lawyers to pay, since the
judicial system worked without either. The juryman's fee, moreover,
was a meagre indemnity, comparable to the old-age pension paid in the
progressive countries of modern Europe.
The payment of indemnities for service in the council, the
magistracies, the jury courts, and for attendance in the theatre,
music-hall, and stadion, was a Periclean innovation. He did not intend
to create a class of salaried officials; nor yet to make an advance
toward communism. His ideal was political, not economic, equality--to
enable all, irrespective of wealth or station, to use the opportunities
and face the obligations which democracy brought in its train. Like
all the great democratic leaders who preceded him, he was a nobleman
by birth and breeding, and, like them, he did not doubt for a moment
that the culture which ennobled the life of his class would dignify and
uplift that of the masses also. To give the workingman the political
insight and knowledge of the Eupatrids; to lend to him the grace and
elasticity of movement which physical culture gave them; to fill his
memory with the noble thoughts set in melodious and stirring words
which they got from their intimacy with great poetry; to inspire in
him, though a mere artisan, an artist's taste and fervor for formal
beauty--that was to bless him with more than leisure. It was to unite
the whole people in a community of high ideas and emotions. It was
to make them a nation of noblemen. We do not wonder much that in the
furtherance of this cause the men of large wealth in Athens volunteered
to assume in turn financial and personal responsibility for the support
of the theatre, the opera-house, the stadion, and the gymnasia. It was
a heavy burden, but, in the absence of a regular property or income
tax, generosity became at once a duty and a wise precaution.
* * * * *
A nation of noblemen is a luxury for which somebody has to pay. Athens,
in Pericles's memorable phrase, was "the school of Hellas." It was
right, he thought, that the Hellenes should sacrifice something for
their education. He had tried to make them all contributory allies of
Athens, but had failed in the attempt. As a good schoolmaster he was
determined, none the less, to hold those "well in hand" whom he had
under his care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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