Admitting the injustice of Athens—an injustice common to both the parties in that city, not less to Kimon than to Periklês—in acting as despot instead of chief, and in discontinuing all appeal to the active and hearty concurrence of her numerous allies, we shall find that the schemes of Periklês were at the same time eminently Pan-Hellenic. In strengthening and ornamenting Athens, in developing the full activity of her citizens, in providing temples, religious offerings, works of art, solemn festivals, all of surpassing attraction,—he intended to exalt her into something greater than an imperial city with numerous dependent allies. He wished to make her the centre of Grecian feeling, the stimulus of Grecian intellect, and the type of strong democratical patriotism combined with full liberty of individual taste and aspiration. He wished not merely to retain the adherence of the subject states, but to attract the admiration and spontaneous deference of independent neighbors, so as to procure for Athens a moral ascendency much beyond the range of her direct power. And he succeeded in elevating the city to a visible grandeur,[32] which made her appear even much stronger than she really was,—and which had the farther effect of softening to the minds of the subjects the humiliating sense of obedience; while it served as a normal school, open to strangers from all quarters, of energetic action even under full license of criticism,—of elegant pursuits economically followed,—and of a love for knowledge without enervation of character. Such were the views of Periklês in regard to his country, during the years which preceded the Peloponnesian war, as we find them recorded in his celebrated Funeral Oration, pronounced in the first year of that war,—an exposition forever memorable of the sentiment and purpose of Athenian democracy, as conceived by its ablest president. [32] Thucyd. i, 10.