Pericles the Athenian

by Rex Warner

  The remark was unkind to Sophocles, who was in fact an efficient general, and most uncharacteristic of Pericles himself, who was always indulgent to his friends and seldom censorious of anyone else. That he made it at all is indicative of the most unusual state of tension in which his mind was at the time. For he saw, more clearly than others, the extreme danger of the situation and, being used to estimating the possibilities of the future, was aware that the whole work of his lifetime was now in jeopardy. The Samians were strong and confident. They lacked indeed the strength to confront the full force of Athens, but if their success could induce Sparta to invade by land and other states with the strategic importance of Byzantium to revolt, Athens would be unable to concentrate her power and, if she lost anything, might lose all. I believe that Pericles considered the situation at this time as the most serious of all in which he had found himself, more dangerous than that which had arisen after the Egyptian disaster or at the time of the revolt of Euboea. Even at the outbreak of this present great war he remained perfectly confident, since he had every reason to believe that so long as Athens would abide by his policy she would be certainly victorious. He could see no such certainty with regard to the situation in Samos, and this I think was the only period of his life when he acted with an impatience that was unlike himself.

  There was, for instance, a most unusual decree passed by the Assembly in Athens which, while not supported by Pericles (he was not in Athens at the time), was at any rate not opposed by him. For two years the comic poets were forbidden to criticize on the stage the leadership and conduct of the war. In many states such a provision in a time of crisis would be normal and expected, but in Athens it was absolutely unprecedented. For in Athens, while there are the strictest regulations enforcing politeness in private life, it has long been the tradition for the comic poets on the public stage to enjoy complete license in the attacks they make on individuals, however prominent they may be. Indeed, many people are amazed to find that such license can be tolerated by a people who in ordinary life resent a deliberate insult more than anything in the world. Even an offensive word may be punished in the courts, while to strike a man, whether citizen or foreigner or slave, will bring the most severe legal penalties. Yet no one thinks anything of abusing a general or a politician on the public stage. He may be accused of peculation, cowardice or immorality, and he himself is expected to join in the general laughter. Certainly Pericles had long been used to the jokes made about his infatuation for Aspasia, his parsimoniousness in private life, the peacocks bought for his mistresses, the strange shape of his head, his extravagance on musical entertainments and state processions, and much else. To my mind the inconsistency in this attitude of the Athenins is apparent rather than real. They are in all respects extremely sensitive to personal injustice, particularly as it may affect the weak and powerless. Consequently all men, and notably those unable to defend themselves, are protected by the law from all overbearing and insolent conduct by those who might be by nature aggressive, or, through an ignorant and insensitive opinion of their own wealth or power, regard themselves as superior to their fellow men. But the man who has already been recognized by the votes of his own people to be exceptional and deserving (if power seems a fair target for criticism. Such criticism delights the hearers and can do no serious harm to one whose position is acknowledged in any case to be superior. Indeed, some of the more superstitious regard these public insults as being positively beneficial, since they may disarm what is supposed to be the envy felt for great men by the gods (a notion which, to my mind, shows a most unworthy feeling for divinity); while others, more rational, consider that it is useful to remind great men that they also are human.

  Pericles was not only aware of this tradition, but approved of it. While he had the tenderest respect for the dignity of others and would often say that since even unkind looks can hurt, they, no less than insolent words and actions, should be punishable by law, he never resented criticism of himself and was curiously indifferent even to unmannerly behavior. There was, I remember, one occasion when some eccentric and boorish character, who had a fancied grievance against him, followed him the whole distance across Athens, shouting out abuse. Pericles paid no attention whatever to him until he reached the door of his own house at about the time it was growing dark. He then called to Aspasia and after he had kissed her, as was his custom, said: “I should be glad if you would tell one of the servants to bring a torch and light the way for my friend on his way home.”

  It is natural therefore that many people find it almost incredible that at a time when Pericles enjoyed such authority in Athens a decree should have been passed which limited to any extent the Athenians’ prized possession of freedom of speech. I myself do not know how far Pericles was in favor of this measure, which, in any case, was only in force for two dramatic seasons; but I do not think that at the time he was actively opposed to it, and I regard this fact as conclusive evidence that he regarded the situation in Samos as the most critical and dangerous of all that he had ever had to meet.

  They tell me that for the next few months he scarcely slept. When he was not actively engaged in the military and naval actions, he was sending message after message to Athens and to the loyal allies with a view to concentrating the greatest possible force in the smallest interval of time. He had no sooner arrived upon the scene than he led his fleet into action against Melissos and the Samian fleet. Here he took a calculated risk. Another defeat would have been disastrous, but so, in his opinion, would have been any hesitation in the pursuit of victory. His calculation was justified by the result. The Samians were routed and once more penned up in their harbor. However, there still remained the dangers of Spartan intervention and of the spreading of the revolt. Before either of these threats became a reality Pericles planned to bring the whole resources of the state against Samos. In the summer newly elected generals arrived with another fleet of sixty ships from Athens. Thirty more were supplied by Chios and Lesbos. Pericles now had at his disposal a fleet of two hundred ships and an army of forty thousand men, together a greater force than that which had been employed against Egypt or, in Kimon’s last campaign, against Persia. The generals too were the most efficient, experienced and brilliant that could have been chosen. Among them was Hagnon, an old friend of Pericles’s and one whom he regarded as the most careful and reliable of all commanders. There was also young Phormion, now at the beginning of his brilliant career. He is known today, as the result of his recent victories, as one of the greatest naval commanders that have ever served Athens, and Pericles was well aware of his ability and his promise.

  The operations on land were directed by Pericles himself, and now that he had secured a stranglehold on the city, he acted with a care and a restraint which disappointed a number of his men who were impatient for revenge and would have gladly taken the chance of an all-out offensive on the fortifications. But Pericles was still the same. Now, as always, he was determined that not a single Athenian should lose his life unless such a sacrifice was necessary. Even as it was, many lives were lost, for the defenses organized by Melissos were both powerful and ingenious, and the Samians, well supplied with food and still hoping for outside aid, fought at first with confidence and later with the recklessness of desperation. I am told that Pericles himself showed the keenest interest in the development of new techniques in siege warfare and apparatus. Here he employed the services of a fellow townsman of mine, Artemon of Clazomenai, who is, I suppose, the greatest mechanical engineer now living. He has told me that the knowledge shown by Pericles of the principles involved was unusual, but I was not surprised by this. Pericles had discussed with Pheidias the immense complication of weight, stress and tension which went into the building of the Parthenon, and I knew from the experience of our early life, when he and I together had spent hour after hour in scientific experiment, that he was one of those rarely gifted people who combine the keenest theoretical insight with patience and dexterity in practice. I should add th
at Artemon was equally impressed by the ingenuity of the defenses which were under the direction of the philosopher Melissos.

  It was, of course, soon obvious that unless help came from abroad the position of Samos was, whatever the resolution of the defenders, hopeless. This help never came. No city in the Athenian alliance followed the example of Byzantium, and Byzantium itself was soon in difficulties. The Great King was satisfied with the peace of Kallias and had no wish to renew hostilities with Athens. He would prefer to have Greeks fight among themselves than combine once more against him. It was in Sparta that the Samians had chiefly placed their hopes and it was in Sparta that they were utterly disappointed. Had Sparta invaded during the first spring, the position of Athens would have been difficult indeed, and it was the fear of such an event that had led Pericles to bring into action at such speed so overwhelming a force. But the Spartans wasted this opportunity in debate. Their habitual caution encouraged them to wait a little longer on events; they could justify their caution by an appeal to legality, since to invade Attica would be to break the peace treaty; and after all, the Samians seemed to be doing quite well by themselves. In the summer, when the crops are gathered in, they are always reluctant to move; in the winter many of the roads are impassable; and by the following spring Samos had surrendered. The Spartans contented themselves with deploring the tyranny of Athens and congratulating themselves on that strict sense of duty if international relations which had prevented them from transgressing the terms of the peace. Samos was forced to capitulate, her fortifications were dismantled, her whole fleet taken over by Athens and her revenues pledged for many years in payment for the expenses of the war. The government was reorganized and hostages, of course, were taken, but there were no savage reprisals. Melissos, I am glad to say, still pursues the study of philosophy.

  The news of the surrender of Samos caused in Athens, as was to be expected, a great outbreak of joy and exultation. People were heard to compare Pericles, in a favorable sense, with Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek expedition against Troy. It was said that while Agamemnon had taken ten years with the united force of Greece to conquer a not very considerable city in Asia, Pericles, with the Athenians alone, had in nine months reduced the greatest and proudest island of the Aegean. To compliments such as this Pericles was wholly indifferent. Indeed, he appeared to resent them. It seemed to me that some change, difficult to define, had come over him in the course of this year. He was, of course, beginning to grow old, but in no respect showed weariness or deficiency. He was at least as active as Kimon had been at his age. His views and his resolutions were unchanged, his mind as rapid and incisive as ever. Yet, though he would never shrink from any hardship or any responsibility, one could notice sometimes a kind of sad resignation in his eyes. He was at the peak of his glory, but glory had never meant much to him personally. Now it seemed to mean nothing at all. His mature satisfaction was in the greatness of Athens, but he had learned from long experience that no greatness can be permanently assured. He knew too that, in the nature of things, his life was drawing towards its close, and being aware of how frequently his own personal intervention had preserved and extended the power of this city to which he had given his heart, he may well have imagined with anxiety a future which he would be powerless to control. But if, as he grew older, his manner changed, it did not change, as often happens, in the direction of severity or hardness. Indeed, the strength and tenderness of his affections were perhaps more openly shown than ever before. I know this from my own experience and may be forgiven, perhaps, if I recall some personal events which, though they do me very little credit, will illustrate the kindness and understanding of my friend.

  14

  The End of Spring

  I have often observed that the most dangerous and difficult periods of our life, both physically and psychologically, are those times of transition between childhood and puberty, puberty and early manhood, youth and middle age, middle age and the beginning of old age. In these periods boys, girls, men and women are peculiarly susceptible to bodily ailments and to strange disturbances of the soul. We are accustomed to speak of the wildness and irresponsibility of youth, but here I think we exaggerate or distort, probably because of a wish to convince ourselves that we are now better than we were. This, in fact, is not generally true. Many young men and girls are at the age of twenty more able and intelligent than they will ever be subsequently, and it is very far from being the case that wildness and irresponsibility are confined to those of immature years. The worst crimes and excesses, the extremes of despair, the most manifest absurdities of conduct are apt to occur in middle or later life. We all know cases of apparently sober and law-abiding men of advanced age who suddenly and almost unpredictably become vicious or insane, who collapse into lethargy, luxury or dull despair, who become ridiculously infatuated with young girls or boys. Women are the same. Elderly and respectable matrons will show themselves totally incapable of exercising any restraint over their lusts — a subject, incidentally, which has been admirably dealt with by Euripides in his recent play Hippolytus. Indeed, in my view, our life tends to follow a pattern of comparative calm and growth set between short interludes of disruption, and the later interludes of transition are, contrary to general belief, the most dangerous. People will often accept this diagnosis in the case of women, whose physical structure and function most evidently alter with advancing years. But men are composed of the same basic material as women, and in men too we must suppose a constant rearrangement, a disappearance and replacement of the seeds or elements which, in their various combinations, shape and control the whole being. Here, as in everything else, it is intelligence alone which can bring and preserve order, and in human society this intelligence can be strengthened and reinforced by habit, law, example and convention. Yet in the best conditions the control is precarious and in times of disaster, terror and insecurity it is apt to be wholly ineffective. Very few men (and of these I believe Pericles was one) are able to live sanely throughout their lives.

  Pericles was, I think, passing through the last of these difficult periods, which may be described as changes of life, at the time of the Samian war, and I have already given some examples of the unusual strain to which he was subjected. His character was, as I have said, quite unimpaired, as it had been during all those other transitional periods through which, since childhood, I have seen him pass.

  The same, I fear, cannot be said for myself. I too, at this time, had become conscious of advancing age, and though I had often observed the follies, miseries and mistakes of others in the same predicament, I lacked the necessary force of intelligence to bring order and resolution into the chaos and disintegration of my spirit. In a word, I fell into a condition of utter despair and resolved, weakly, to put an end to my own life. There were indeed extraneous factors which contributed to this insane resolution. None were important and it was the mere disorganization of my nature which compelled me, against my better judgment, to exaggerate them beyond all measure. I was deprived, for instance, of the society of my friends, all of whom were serving in the Samian war. I was in a state of abject poverty, having foolishly allowed myself to be defrauded of the little money which I possessed. Thus for some weeks I was almost entirely without food and as a result was constantly subject to fainting fits and long periods of total exhaustion. I could, indeed, easily have approached Aspasia or any member of Pericles’s household, and my wants would have been immediately satisfied. Pride and despair prevented me from taking so obvious a step; for at the same time I had become profoundly dissatisfied with the whole endeavor and achievement of my life. It seemed to me that in all my long pursuit of truth from the time when, as a boy in Clazomenae, I had watched the shifting colors of the sky and sea, admiring nature and seeking for the causes of motion and of change, I had discovered nothing that was wholly verifiable, nothing, indeed, of any importance whatever. Most people from time to time are visited by such black moods and, with reason and courage, can surmount them.
Both my reason and my courage were undermined by inaction, and I made up my mind to die. This was a most unworthy decision, for which I still feel shame. None of you, my friends, need feel apprehensive that I shall ever fall into such a state again, disgracing both myself and your hospitable city by suicide. I have regained the self-control which, in those days, for reasons both physical and intellectual, I had certainly lost.

  I remember that I shut myself in my room, wrapped my cloak around me and, in a kind of torpor, waited for death. I was not impatient of its delay or apprehensive of its arrival. I scarcely thought at all and what thoughts I had may be described as pleasurable rather than painful. They arose from a cessation of all effort and an absolute resignation. I was aware of the noise of rejoicing in the streets which marked the return of the army from Samos, but I was unmoved by it and scarcely bothered even to wonder what had happened to my friends. It would be interesting to investigate further this state of mind, a state rather animal, I think, than human. However, that is not the purpose of this recollection.

  I am dimly aware that at some time someone, perhaps a servant, perhaps an acquaintance, entered my room and spoke to me. Whether I replied to him or not I do not know, but if I did say anything, I should no doubt have asked him to leave and to allow me to die in the peace that I imagined I had acquired.