The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [278]
10. But Pericles informed the people that they were in no way obliged to give any account of those moneys to their allies,
11. So long as they maintained their defence, and kept off the barbarians from attacking them;
12. While in the meantime they did not so much as supply one horse or man or ship, but only found money for the service;
13. ‘Which money,’ he said, ‘is not theirs that gave it, but theirs that received it,
14. ‘So long as they perform the conditions on which they received it.’
15. And that it was good reason, that, now the city was sufficiently provided and stored with all things necessary for the war,
16. They should convert the overplus of its wealth to such undertakings as would hereafter, when completed, give them eternal honour,
17. And, for the present, while in process, freely supply all the inhabitants with plenty.
18. With their variety of workmanship and of occasions for service, which summon all arts and trades and require all hands to be employed about them,
19. They put the whole city, in a manner, into state-pay; while at the same time she is both beautiful and maintained by herself.
20. For as those who are of age and strength for war are provided for and maintained in the armaments abroad by their pay out of the public stock,
21. So, it being Pericles’ desire and design that the undisciplined multitude that stayed at home should not go without their share of public salaries, and yet should not have them for sitting still and doing nothing,
22. To that end he thought fit to bring in among them, with the approbation of the people, these projects of buildings and designs of work,
23. That would be of some continuance before they were finished, and would give employment to numerous arts,
24. So that the part of the people that stayed at home might, no less than those that were at sea or in garrisons or on expeditions,
25. Have a fair and just occasion of receiving the benefit and having their share of the public moneys.
26. The materials were stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony and cypresswood;
27. And the arts or trades that wrought and fashioned them were smiths and carpenters, moulders,
28. Founders and braziers, stone-cutters, dyers, goldsmiths, ivory-workers, painters, embroiderers and turners;
29. And those who conveyed them to the town for use included merchants, mariners and ship-masters by sea,
30. And by land, cartwrights, cattle-breeders, wagoners, rope-makers, flax-workers, shoemakers, leather-dressers, road-makers, miners.
31. And every trade in the same nature, as a captain in an army has his particular company of soldiers under him, had its own hired company of journeymen and labourers belonging to it banded together as in array, to be the instrument and body for the performance of the service.
32. Thus, to say all in a word, the occasions and services of these public works distributed plenty through every age and condition.
Chapter 35
1. As the public works rose up, no less stately in size than exquisite in form,
2. The workmen striving to outvie the material and the design with the beauty of their workmanship,
3. Yet the most wonderful thing of all was the rapidity of their execution.
4. Undertakings, any one of which singly might have required, they thought, several successions and ages of men for their completion,
5. Were every one of them accomplished in the height and prime of one man’s political service.
6. Although they say, too, that Zeuxis once, having heard Agatharchus the painter boast of dispatching his work with speed and ease, replied, ‘I take a long time.’
7. For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty;
8. The expenditure of time allowed to a man’s pains beforehand for the production of a thing is repaid by the preservation when once completed.
9. For which reason Pericles’ works are especially admired, as having been made quickly, yet having lasted so long.
10. For every piece of his work was immediately antique, even at that time, for its beauty and elegance;
11. And yet in its