the opinions professed, in the society of Periklês, by Anaxagoras and others. Against Anaxagoras himself, too, a similar indictment is said to have been preferred, either by Kleon or by Thucydidês, son of Melêsias, under a general resolution recently passed in the public assembly, at the instance of Diopeithês. And such was the sensitive antipathy of the Athenian public, shown afterwards fatally in the case of Sokratês, and embittered in this instance by all the artifices of political faction, against philosophers whose opinions conflicted with the received religious dogmas, that Periklês did not dare to place Anaxagoras on his trial: the latter retired from Athens, and the sentence of banishment was passed against him in his absence.[173] But he himself defended Aspasia before the diakastery: in fact, the indictment was as much against him as against her: one thing alleged against her, and also against Pheidias, was, the reception of free women to facilitate the intrigues of Periklês. He defended her successfully, and procured a verdict of acquittal: but we are not surprised to hear that his speech was marked by the strongest personal emotions, and even by tears.[174] The dikasts were accustomed to such appeals to their sympathies, sometimes even to extravagant excess, from ordinary accused persons: but in Periklês, so manifest an outburst of emotion stands out as something quite unparalleled: for constant self-mastery was one of the most prominent features in his character.[175] And we shall find him near the close of his political life, when he had become for the moment unpopular with the Athenian people, distracted as they were at the moment with the terrible sufferings of the pestilence,—bearing up against their unmerited anger not merely with dignity, but with a pride of conscious innocence and desert which rises almost into defiance; insomuch that the rhetor Dionysius, who criticizes the speech of Periklês as if it were simply the composition of Thucydidês, censures that historian for having violated dramatic propriety by a display of insolence where humility would have been becoming.[176] [171] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 24 Εἶτα τῆς συμβιώσεως οὐκ οὔσης αὐτοῖς ἀρεστῆς, ἐκείνην μὲν ἑτέρῳ βουλομένην συνεξέδωκεν, αὐτὸς δὲ Ἀσπασίαν λαβὼν ἔστερξε διαφερόντως. [172] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 13-36. [173] This seems the more probable story: but there are differences of statement and uncertainties upon many points: compare Plutarch, Periklês, c. 16-32; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 12, 13. See also Schaubach, Fragment. Anaxagoræ, pp. 47-52. [174] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 32. [175] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 7, 36-39. [176] Thucyd. ii, 60, 61: compare also his striking expressions, c. 65; Dionys. Halikarn. De Thucydid. Judic. c. 44, p. 924.