Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
V. Perikles greatly admired Anaxagoras, and became deeply interested in
these grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty
style of oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also
an imperturbable gravity of countenance, and a calmness of demeanour and
appearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the
tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. These
advantages greatly impressed the people. Once he sat quietly all day in
the market-place despatching some pressing business, reviled in the
foulest terms all the while by some low worthless fellow. Towards
evening he walked home, the man following him and heaping abuse upon
him. When about to enter his own door, as it was dark, he ordered one of
his servants to take a torch and light the man home. The poet Ion,
however, says that Perikles was overbearing and insolent in
conversation, and that his pride had in it a great deal of contempt for
others; while he praises Kimon's civil, sensible, and polished address.
But we may disregard Ion, as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in
great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas
Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Perikles a mere
courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity
themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might
insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their
model.
VI. These were not the only advantages which Perikles gained from his
intimacy with Anaxagoras, but he seems to have learned to despise those
superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce in
those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about them,
refer them all to the immediate action of the gods. Knowledge of
physical science, while it puts an end to superstitious terrors,
replaces them by a sound basis of piety. It is said that once a ram with
one horn was sent from the country as a present to Perikles, and that
Lampon the prophet, as soon as he saw this strong horn growing out of
the middle of the creature's forehead, said that as there were two
parties in the state, that of Thucydides and that of Perikles, he who
possessed this mystic animal would unite the two into one. Anaxagoras
cut open the beast's skull, and pointed out that its brain did not fill
the whole space, but was sunken into the shape of an egg, and all
collected at that part from which the horn grew. At the time all men
looked with admiration on Anaxagoras, but afterwards, when Thucydides
had fallen, and all the state had become united under Perikles, they
admired Lampon equally.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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