332 PERICLES.

the charge when Cimon was tried for his life ; for Peri- cles was one of the committee appointed by the commons to plead against him. And when Elpinice came and be- sought him in her brother's behalf, he answered, with a smile, " Elpinice, } t ou are too old a woman to under- take such business as this." But, when he appeared to impeach him, he stood up but once to speak, merely to acquit himself of his commission, and went out of court, having done Cimon the least prejudice of any of his ac- cusers. How, then, can one believe Idomeneus, who charges Pericles as if he had by treachery procured the murder of Ephialtes, the popular statesman, one who was his friend, and of his own party in all his political course, out of jealousy, forsooth, and envy of his great reputation ? This historian, it seems, having raked up these stories, I know not whence, has befouled with them a man who, perchance, was not altogether free from fault or blame, but yet had a noble spirit, and a soul that was bent on honor ; and where such qualities are, there can no such cruel and brutal passion find harbor or gain admittance. As to Ephialtes, the truth of the story, as Aristotle has told it, is this : that having made himself formidable to the oligarchical party, by being an uncompromising as- serter of the people's rights in calling to aceount and prosecuting those who any way wronged them, his ene- mies, lying in wait for him, by the means of Aristodicus the Tanagra3an, privately despatched him. Cimon, while he was admiral, ended his days in the Isle of Cyprus. And the aristocratical party, seeing that Pericles was already before this grown to be the greatest and foremost man of all the city, but nevertheless wishing there should be somebody set up against him, to blunt and turn the edge of his power, that it might not alto-

gether prove a monarchy, put forward Thucydides of