Pericles the Athenian

by Rex Warner

  Now the political organization developed by Pericles is the noblest that has ever been devised by man. It confers the greatest benefits on its citizens and it makes on them extraordinary demands. Obviously in such a democracy, where each single man exercises power, it is necessary that each single man must be, at least to some extent, wise, good and courageous. The common charge made against the democracy of Athens is that, human nature being what it is, it is impossible for such a state of affairs to exist; and what has astonished the world is the fact that this argument has proved untrue. It remains possible, however, that such a state of affairs may not persist. Some natural calamity (earthquake or plague), defeat in war, or violent civil strife might, theoretically, fatally disturb that due balance and proportion on which every organization rests. So far, it must be owned, Athens has shown herself to an almost incredible degree invulnerable and irrepressible. To defeat she has reacted with lightning rapidity and proceeded directly to victory; internal dissensions, even such as must proceed from the clash of such powerful personalities as Pericles and Kimon, have been solved peacefully and even amicably; scarcely any greater natural calamity has fallen on any city than the plague in which Pericles himself lost his life; yet, as we can see, Athens has recovered from the plague.

  When I try to find a reason for this extraordinary strength, vigor and recuperative power of the Athenian democracy, I find it partly (as Pericles would wish me to find it) in the constitution itself, but I find it also in a magnificent and to others often an irrational self-confidence. To Pericles this confidence was rational enough; its validity had been proved by experience; and he would admit, I think, that it springs from a confidence in life itself, a fervent and creative belief that man is able to transform nature, hazardous and difficult though the process may be. And, so long as men retain this belief, I can conceive of no more perfect organization of human society than that which I have seen develop in Athens. Yet no human design is so perfect as to be indestructible. As a philosopher I am compelled to admit that if ever for any reason this superb confidence in life were to be lost, the whole fabric of Periclean Athens, and with it much of what we call civilization, would collapse. For if men see no future, they are inadequately equipped to deal even with the present. In such a state people, instead of seeking responsibilities, would decline or avoid them. They would either delegate or surrender power to others, and in so doing would cripple their own natures. In such a situation we would rightly regard them as slaves or, at the best, barbarians. The organization of the city would disappear and be replaced by a great empire like that of Persia, or a half-savage autocracy like Macedonia. The functions of government would be performed either autocratically by a monarch or invisibly by a small minority of experts. For good men, if any such remained, there would be no public use. Soldiers would become either conscript or mercenary. Philosophers and poets would be friendless except in their own circles. In despair of society and the world, they would cultivate their own personalities to the exclusion of their environment. Superstition, of course, would be rife since without hope there is no incentive to discover the reason of things. Those who acquiesced in an imposed convention would be most happy, and the most honored would be the rich and those who, by the exercise of some talent or other, were able to entertain the masses with some substitute for pleasure.

  This is, I must own, a prospect almost too dreadful to contemplate; but it is my duty as a philosopher to assert that it is not inconceivable. Nor is this discussion wholly beside the point. I was led into it by attempting to explain to myself what it was in Euripides which seemed sometimes to perplex Pericles. I believe it was this that Euripdes, with all his excellent qualities, was in some deep and hidden way ready to abandon hope, and that Pericles was aware that in his ideal society there was scope for every emotion except despair. I shall now, if I may, describe some of our discussions of the ends and means of politics, discussions in which, as I have said, Euripides never played an important part.

  8

  Theories and Acts

  Damon used to say that if one broke the laws of music, one was disturbing the structure of the universe. I think that Pericles felt much the same way about democracy. He gave the word its full meaning. Power was to be exercised by literally the whole people. Thus he was not a demagogue in the sense of one who leads the majority of the poor and underprivileged against the minority of the and privileged. It is true that at the beginning of his career, when with Ephialtes he was attacking the Areopagus, he did sometimes find himself regarded as particularly the champion of the masses against the few, and Ephialtes himself, in his fiery speeches, often, for the sake of his own aims, inflamed the poor against the rich. The murder of Ephialtes gave Pericles an opportunity of crushing for a long time any possible opposition from those whom knew to be his enemies. He did not take this opportunity, partly because he hated injustice and partly because he was confident in the validity of his own political theory. Believing, as he did, that every single citizen had his part to play, he wished no one to be, for any reason except cowardice or treason, incapacitated. There was no disgrace in being poor, he used to say, and nothing admirable about being rich. The only disgrace was to make no effort to escape from one’s poverty or to employ one’s riches unworthily.

  Now the arguments against this total democracy, which Pericles not only imagined but actually brought into existence, are many and they deserve consideration. These arguments we discussed over and over again, and we found them not to be cogent.

  It is often said, for instance, that government, like any other human activity, is an art. It is no more within the capacity of everybody than is the ability to write poetry. If we wish to build a temple or a ship we go to a trained architect or shipwright, not to the first man we see in the street. In the same way government is an affair for the expert; it requires not only unusual intelligence but also experience and leisure. You cannot expect an untrained soldier to lead an army, and you cannot expect a poor man, however able, to devote his abilities to public service at the expense of ruining his own business. It is therefore better that government should be entrusted to the minority who are trained by birth and experience to this difficult task and who are well enough off to make it the chief business of their lives. And it used to be said that this principle is already enshrined in the Athenian constitution. The citizen body is divided into four classes on the basis of the ownership of property. Each class used to have (and, in some ways, still has) its separate responsibility, and only the two upper classes were eligible for the important magistracies. It is admitted that past history has shown that government by the few has often led to corruption and even tryanny. But in Athens there are safeguards. Any really flagrant act of injustice would certainly be brought before the Assembly of the people. Minor irregularities must, in the nature of things, occur, since every single official cannot possibly be subject to scrutiny in all his acts and not all men in any class are always honest. However, honesty is more likely to be found among those who traditionally take pride in political achievement and honor and who have no great need to increase their fortunes at the expense of others. In any case, this trifling risk is one that must be taken. The reiterative is to put government into the hands of many who, by nature and occupation, are unfitted for it. And what is of supreme importance in government, as in shipbuilding, architecture or any other skillful activity, is efficiency.

  Many people meet the above argument in the following way. Most of the premises are accepted. It is admitted that a wide diffusion of power must lead to divided councils and a certain degree of inefficiency. Ideally a small committee of the best men, or even one man of extraordinary ability, might govern the affairs of a state with more justice and with greater efficiency than is possible under a democracy. In practice, however, this is not what happens. The teachings of history on this particular point are absolutely clear. It has always been found than when power is concentrated in a few hands that power is bound to corrupt. The governme
nt of so-called “experts” has never lasted more than one generation without degenerating into tyranny. In Athens the tyrant Peisistratus performed, undoubtedly, great works and, so far as we know, behaved with moderation and respect towards the citizens. But his sons behaved very differently, and their murderers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, are still rightly honored as liberators. A man’s liberty is worth more to him than anything else. No efficiency in government can compensate for its loss. In a democracy, as in everything else, there are some defects. Its procedure may be slow and cumbrous; wrong decisions may be taken under the influence of some sudden storm of emotion in which the best will not be allowed a hearing. These are faults inherent in the nature of democracy, but they are much less serious than the dangers of allowing unrestricted power to a minority. No system of government is perfect and, man being what he is, none can be. But democracy has the inestimable advantage of guaranteeing liberty, whereas all other forms of government, however efficient, will tend in the other direction. Democracy, therefore, with all its faults, is the least bad of all the systems of government so far designed by man.

  This common argument would have been treated by Pericles with contempt. He regarded democracy not as a lesser evil but as a positive good, and his theory of democracy, the basis of which had been found long ago in conversation with Damon, Ephialtes and myself, continued to develop. Damon, as I have said, regarded politics almost as a branch of music. To him each citizen had something of the value of a certain note or a certain tension of the strings of the lyre. Each was important as each contributed to the melody. And I, as a natural scientist, approached the problem from the standpoint of my philosophy. I believe, as is well known, that in everything there are elements or particles of all other things; it is the force of intelligence that has given rise to quality and distinction, through the separating of and the combination of elements that would otherwise be undistinguished and indistinguishable. So that we may rightly say that this force is creative. Not that it produces something out of nothing, since there can be no nothing; but it makes quality, by which alone we judge things, out of what has no quality. With all these ideas Pericles was perfectly familiar. What he added to the abstractions of our theories was a warm, vigorous and confident humanity. He had, may we say, the highest possible opinion of everyone. And it was here chiefly that he differed from all other political theorists.

  Now all civilized men must, of course, aim at the perfection of their cities. There are certain obvious essentials. A city must be able to defend itself from its enemies; it must have the resources to feed and clothe its citizens; it must have laws by which behavior is regulated; and it must be of such a kind that its citizens will take pride in it. Most theorists, in attempting to satisfy these conditions, have, on the basis of what normally exists, commended a differentiation and specialization of functions, and as a rule (though not in Sparta) this differentiation is based on the private ownership of property. In Athens for a very long time the chief magistrates came only from the richer classes, who, since they had the means to maintain horses, also formed the cavalry. The hoplite army was composed largely of the middle classes, who at this time numbered about one hundred thousand, as compared with not more than four thousand in the upper classes. The lowest class was also large, perhaps including sixty thousand, and it was on this class that the fleet depended for its rowers and steersmen.

  From a military point of view there was much to be said for the system, and in this respect Pericles made no attempt to interfere with it. He would agree that in warfare some degree of specialization is necessary. It was in regard to political power and responsibility that he differed from others. For it was his belief that every single citizen (apart from the criminal and the feeble-minded) not only had the right but the duty of taking a full part in the government and organization of the state. Many reforms tending in this direction had, of course, been made before Pericles, and notably, in the period before the Persian wars, by Pericles’s great-uncle, the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes. The distinction of Pericles was in carrying out the theory of democracy to the extreme limits which appear to be possible. His originality and his extraordinary faith in human, or at least Athenian, nature is shown in his belief that every man, given the opportunity, has the capacity to do almost everything. He held with a passionate conviction that a man who is versatile and self-disciplined is not only a finer but a stronger creature than one who is merely a specialist and who accepts a discipline that is imposed.

  This is not the place to describe in any detail the working of the Athenian constitution. It is well known that supreme sovereignty resides in the Assembly of the people, that the day-to-day business of administration is carried out by the council of five hundred who are chosen annually by lot, that six thousand jurymen, organized in various courts, sit throughout the year, and that there are also nearly fifteen hundred magistrates in Athens or in her possessions overseas with all sorts of duties — religious, financial and administrative. Most of these, too, are chosen by lot and retire after their year of office. The only magistrates who are elected directly and not by the luck of the lot are the ten generals. These, unlike other magistrates, can be re-elected after their year of office, though, like all other magistrates, they have to submit every detail of their conduct each year to the scrutiny either of the law courts or of a committee of the council.

  The achievement of Pericles was in developing this existing system to the greatest possible extent rather than in altering it. From the time when he and Ephialtes made their successful attack on the powers of the Areopagus, there was nothing in the Athenian constitution which at all resembled oligarchy, except a certain number of individual politicians, seldom well organized, who feared the future and regretted the past. The few vestiges of privilege soon ceased to exist. On the motion of Pericles members of the third property class became entitled to stand for all magistracies, and in practice any members of the fourth who wished to do so could also put their names forward. More important was the system designed by Pericles which provided for jurymen serving in the law courts to be paid for their services. Hitherto these courts, with their power over almost all operations of state, had tended to be the preserve of the rich or the moderately well-to-do, since only these could afford to spend much time away from their work. But in Pericles’s view the city needed every man and every man needed the city. The introduction of pay for jurymen meant that no one was debarred by either age or poverty from this right and this duty. It was a measure which has often been criticized. Many have accused Pericles of bribing the people, particularly the lower classes, simply to make himself popular and to secure a permanent majority in the Assembly. It was a dishonest trick, it was said, to counterbalance the popularity of Kimon, who, after arranging a five-year truce with Sparta, was again becoming a force in the state. And of course Pericles was a shrewd enough politician to know that these were indeed likely results from his policy. But still, to him they were incidental. Had he wished to bribe the citizens for his own profit at the expense of the city, he would have extended the citizenship instead of restricting it, as he did some years later. And in these years he worked, on the whole, not against, but in collaboration with Kimon. Even Kimon had begun to be somewhat disillusioned with Sparta. His chief interest was still in the war with Persia, and Pericles supported him in this interest, no doubt on the understanding that in domestic affairs Kimon would at least acquiesce in his own policies. There was never at any time anything fragmentary or opportunist in the political theory and practice of Pericles. His aims were clear to him from the beginning and they became clearer as time went on. What he imagined was a city in which each man would be self-sufficient and all men interdependent. This city was already the greatest in Greece, but its strength and value were not in mere size. Here as everywhere beauty and efficiency depend on proportion. A city in which every man cannot take an active part in government and in which every man cannot know his neighbor has, through size, lost the quality of a city. I
t becomes a disorganized collection of human beings in which liberty is impossible and energies cannot find their proper scope.