358 PERICLES.

made it illegal to take down or withdraw the tablet of the decree, one of the ambassadors, Polyalces by name, said, " Well, do not take it down then, but turn it ; there is no law, I suppose, which forbids that ; " * which, though prettily said, did not move Pericles from his resolution. There may have been, in all likelihood, something of a secret grudge and private animosity which he had against the Megarians. Yet, upon -a public and open charge against them, that they had appropriated part of the sacred land on the frontier, he proposed a decree that a herald should be sent to them, and the same also to the Lacedemonians, with an accusation of the Megarians ; an order which certainly shows equitable and friendly pro- ceeding enough. And after that the herald who was sent, by name Anthemocritus, died, and it was believed that the Megarians had contrived his death, then Cha- rinus proposed a decree against them, that there should be an irreconcilable and implacable enmity thenceforward betwixt the two commonwealths ; and that if any one of the Megarians should but set his foot in Attica, he should be put to death ; and that the commanders, when they take the usual oath, should, over and above that, swear that thev will twice every year make an inroad into the Me- garian country; and that Anthemocritus should be bu- ried near the Thriasian Gates, which are now called the Dipylon, or Double Gate. On the other hand, the Megarians, utterly denying and disowning the murder of Anthemocritus, throw the whole matter upon Aspasia and Pericles, availing themselves of the famous verses in the Acharnians,

• The word for taking down, in two senses. " If you may not take

the literal sense, is also the techni- it down, turn it, with its face to the cal term for revoking, or repealing; wall."

hence the Spartans play upon the