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180 ANCIENT GREECE.[CHAP. xin.in all its bearings ; and to act on the principles which result from such knowledge. In this lies the secret of greatmen, that no one can betray them, because no one sharestheir penetration, or rather in many cases their presaginginsight into the future. On hearing the age of Periclesmentioned, a crowd of glorious associations is called up ;hewho becomes more profoundly acquainted with it, soon findsthat no pure ideal of perfection then existed. To beholdthe mere citizen of a republic, raising his nation, and bymeans of his nation alljnankind, tq a higher position, is aspectacle which history has never but once been able, undersimilar circumstances, to repeat, in Lorenzo the Magnificent.Enviable men, around whose brows the unfading laureltwines its verdure ! If fame in succeeding generations, ifthe grateful remembrance of posterity, is no vain felicity,who would not willingly exchange his claims for yours ?In his political course, Pericles was guided by a simpleprinciple ;to be the first in his own city, whilst he securedto it the first place among cities. Its political preponderance depended on the preservation of its supremacy overGreece ;and this was to be preserved, not by force alone ;but by every thing which, according to Grecian ideas, couldrender a city illustrious. Hence he felt himself the necessity of improving his mind more variously than had hithertobeen common in Athens ;and he availed himself for thatend of all the means which his age afforded him. He wasthe first statesman, who felt that a certain degree of acquaintance with philosophy was requisite ; not in order to involvehis mind in the intricacies of a system, but to exercise himself in thinking with freedom ;and he became the pupil ofAnaxagoras. 1 If before no orators, except those appointedby the state, had spoken in the popular assemblies, he wasthe first who came forward as a2voluntary orator ; and thestudy of eloquence was necessary for him, although he nevermade the duties of an active statesman subordinate to thoseof a public speaker. Whilst he ornamented Athensthose bymaster-pieces of architecture and the arts of design, hewas not the patron, but the personal friend of a Phidias andraJh P (S? Pericl8 ^ me .?ollowin accoun t ; consult Plutarch in the biooratorsappointed b r