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VI · The Magnificent DrugAFTER Agostino Depretis came Francesco Crispi. Thus, oddlyenough, after the liberal statesman who introduced the policy ofspending, perfected the techniques of corruption, and committedthe nation to the institution of militarism, came the liberal statesmanwho infected Italy with the virus of imperialism. For imperialismflows as logically from militarism as militarism from spending.Practical Italian politicians perceived that they could not inducetheir tax^burdened people to support large armies and navies—whatever the real purpose—without persuading them that theystood in need of these costly weapons. They could not do this withoutproviding the people with an adequate arsenal of fears. If thecountry had no natural enemy to be cultivated, then an enemy hadto be invented. There is no answer to the proposition that a nationmust be strong enough to repel the ambitions of powerful andgreedy neighbors. Hence the powerful and greedy neighbors becomepeople, and breaking down the hedges and enclosures of his grounds, that all that wouldmight gather what fruit they pleased, Pericles, thus outdone in popular arts, by the deviceof one Damonides of Oea, as Aristotle states, turned to the distribution of the publicmoneys"How he used these "moneys" is revealed in the following paragraphs of the Romanbiographer: "Pericles, at that time more than any other, let loose the reins to the people,and made his policy subservient to their pleasure, contriving continually to have some greatpublic show or solemnity, some banquet, or some procession or other in the town to pleasethem, coaxing his countrymen like children, and with such delights and pleasures as werenot, however, unedifying. Besides that every year he sent three score galleys, on board ofwhich there went numbers of citizens, who were in pay eight months, learning at the sametime and practicing the art of seamanship."He sent, moreover, a thousand of them into the Chersonese as planters, to share theland among them by lot. . . . And this he did to ease and discharge the city of an idle,and by reason of their idleness, a busy, meddling crowd of people. . . ."That which gave most pleasure and ornament to the City of Athens and the greatestadmiration and even astonishment to all strangers . . . was his construction of the publicand sacred buildings."It was good reason, that now the city was sufficiently provided with all things necessaryfor war, they should convert the overplus of wealth to such undertakings as would hereafter,when completed, give them eternal honor, and, for the present, while in process,freely supply all the inhabitants with plenty. With their variety of workmanship and ofoccasions for service, which summon all arts and trades and require all hands to be employedabout them, they do actually put the whole city, in a manner, into state-pay; whileat the same time she is both beauti£ed and maintained by herself. For as those who are ofage and strength for war are provided for and maintained in the armaments abroad bytheir pay out of the public stock, so, it being his desire and design, that the undisciplined2O