Although by birth belonging to the nobles, Pericles took the side of the people in Athens, partly, at first, because he did not want to do anything that might make it even seem that he was aiming at the sole power of a Tyrant. He soon became the acknowledged leader, and he then entered on quite a new course and management of his time. For he was never seen to walk in any street but that which led to the market-place and the council hall, and he avoided invitations of friends to supper, and all friendly visiting and intercourse whatever. He also presented himself at intervals only, not coming at all times into the Assembly, but reserving himself for great occasions.[12] In many ways Pericles showed himself superior to the men around him, and because of this superiority and for his great power in public affairs he was given the surname of the Olympian. Like Zeus, he was said to speak with thundering and lightning, and to wield a dreadful thunderbolt in his tongue. Pericles, however, was very careful what and how he was to speak, insomuch that whenever he was to speak in the Assembly, he prayed the gods that no one word might unawares slip from him unsuitable to the matter and the occasion.[13] {186} Under the leadership of Pericles, Athens rose to be a great state. The Age of Pericles was a short one, lasting only for about fifty years in the last part of the fifth century B.C., but it was a period which was great not only in material prosperity, but also in every form of intellectual and artistic beauty. The work of Pericles which gave most pleasure and ornament to the city of Athens, and the greatest admiration and even astonishment to all strangers, and that which is now Greece's only evidence that the power she boasted of and her ancient wealth are no romance or idle story, was his construction of the public and sacred buildings.[14] The story of these buildings will be told in its own place; for more than two thousand years they have testified to the greatness of the people who built them. By the laws Pericles made it became possible for every free-born Athenian citizen, no matter how poor he was, to take an active part in the government of the State, thus completing the work of the earlier lawgivers and making Athens a democracy, a state ruled by the many.