Pericles was not less ambitious to aggrandize Athens, than were his more martial or plebeian precursors; but he well understood the destiny of his race, and knew on what surer foundations to build than aristocratic or regal titles, which, if he had the power to possess, he always affected to despise. The wider extension of national domain was to yield to the loftier cultivation of the national mind. Obedient to his behest, and in harmony with the popular will, all superior proficients gathered round the Acropolis, a spot too sacred for human habitations, and, by their united labors, soon rendered it the central glory of "a city of the gods." In his youth, Pericles had known Pindar and Empedocles. He had seen the prison of Miltiades, and turned from a music lesson to gaze after Aristides driven into exile. Æschylus he early loved, and exercised maturer thought with Sophocles, in debates on eloquence. By Euripides had he been instructed in ethical philosophy; and Protagorus and Democritus, Anaxagoras and Meton, did he question as to the best rules of state polity. Herodotus and Thucydides initiated him into history. Acron and Hippocrates imbued him with a beneficent philosophy; Ictinus built to his order, the Parthenon, worthy of Polygnotus to paint; while Phidias set up under the same auspices the tutelary deity of the land, in ivory and gold. Thus trained among a people susceptible and fastidious, that had itself become a Pericles, competent to appreciate, in every department the high excellence they inspired and recompensed, he was the first to mirror to themselves fully, the exalted models after which universal poetry prompted them to aspire. Themistocles had led them to deeds of daring and enterprise, but the adroit son of Xanthippus soon eclipsed every competitor, even that mighty Cimon, whose extraordinary qualities had prepared the way for his supremacy. The grave aspect of Pericles, his composed gait, the decorous arrangement of his robe, and the subdued modulation of his voice, are dwelt upon by his eulogists, just as if his posthumous statue had been the subject of their comments. It was this close and constant attention to the inner spirit and external expression of all thought, art, and manners, that distinguished the memorable period when the grand style characterized every thing. To use the words of Plutarch: "Pericles gave to the study of philosophy the color of rhetoric. The most brilliant imagination seconded all the powers of logic. Sometimes he thundered with vehemence, and set all Greece in flames; at other times the goddess of persuasion, with all her allurements, dwelt upon his tongue, and no one could defend himself from the solidity of his argument, and the sweetness of his discourse."