Pericles seeks to please the populace by diminishing the power of the Areopagus. He causes a decree to be passed, that those who denied the existence of the Gods, or introduced new opinions about celestial things, should be tried by the people. This, however, proves injurious to some of his own personal friends. Hermippus lays before the Thesmothetæ Archons an accusation of blasphemy against Anaxagoras, Phidias, and Aspasia; and the case is tried before the fourth assembly of the people. Anaxagoras is charged with not having offered victims to the Gods, and with having blasphemed the divine Phœbus, by saying the sun was only a huge ball of fire,—and is condemned to die. Phidias is accused of blasphemy, in having carved the likeness of himself and Pericles on the shield of heaven-born Pallas, of having said that he approved the worship of the Gods merely because he wished to have his own works adored, and of decoying to his own house the maids and matrons of Athens, under the pretence of seeing sculpture, but in fact, to administer to the profligacy of Pericles. He is also adjudged to death. Aspasia is accused of saying that the sacred baskets of Demeter contained nothing of so much importance as the beautiful maidens who carried them; and that the temple of Poseidon was enriched with no offerings from those who had been wrecked, notwithstanding their supplications—thereby implying irreverent doubts of the power of Ocean's God. Her sentence is exile. Pericles, however, succeeds in getting the execution of the decrees suspended until the oracle of Amphiaraus can be consulted. Antiphon, a celebrated diviner, is appointed to consult it. He is absent for many days, and in the meantime Pericles has an opportunity of tampering with the people, as he has already done with Antiphon. The response of the oracle opportunely declares that the sentences be reconsidered. It is done—Phidias and Anaxagoras are merely banished, while Aspasia is acquitted. These trials form perhaps the most interesting portion of the book.