The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [283]
14. And having ravaged and wasted their country, weighed anchor for home with the double advantage of having shown himself formidable to his enemies,
15. And at the same time safe and energetic to his fellow citizens;
16. For there was not so much as any chance miscarriage that happened, the whole voyage through, to those who were under his charge.
17. Entering also the Euxine Sea with a large and finely equipped fleet, he obtained for the Greek cities any new arrangements they wanted, and entered into friendly relations with them;
18. And to the barbarous nations, and kings and chiefs round about them, displayed the greatness of the power of the Athenians,
19. Their perfect ability and confidence to sail wherever they had a mind, and to bring the whole sea under their control.
20. He left the Sinopians thirteen ships of war, with soldiers under the command of Lamachus, to assist them against Timesileus the tyrant;
21. And when this tyrant and his accomplices had been thrown out,
22. Obtained a decree that six hundred of the Athenians that were willing should sail to Sinope and plant themselves there with the Sinopians,
23. Sharing among them the houses and land which the tyrant and his party had previously held.
24. But in other things he did not comply with the giddy impulses of the citizens, nor quit his own resolutions to follow their fancies,
25. When, carried away with the thought of their strength and great success, they were eager to interfere again in Egypt,
26. And to disturb the King of Persia’s maritime dominions.
27. Indeed, there were a good many who were, even then, possessed with that profoundly unwise passion for Sicily,
28. Which afterward the orators of Alcibiades’ party blew up into a flame.
29. There were some also who dreamt of conquering Tuscany and Carthage,
30. And not without plausible reason in their present large dominion and prosperous course of their affairs.
31. But Pericles curbed this passion for foreign conquest, and unsparingly pruned and cut down their ever busy fancies for a multitude of undertakings;
32. And directed their power for the most part to securing and consolidating what they had already got,
33. Supposing it would be quite enough for them to do, if they could keep the Lacedaemonians in check;
34. To whom he entertained all along a sense of opposition; which, as upon many other occasions,
35. He particularly showed by what he did in the time of the Delphic war.
Chapter 41
1. The Lacedaemonians, having gone with an army to Delphi to recapture it from the Phocians who had taken it from the Delphians;
2. Immediately after their departure, Pericles, with another army, came and restored the Phocians.
3. That he did well and wisely in thus restraining the exertions of the Athenians within the compass of Greece,
4. The events themselves that happened afterward bore sufficient witness.
5. For, in the first place, the Euboeans revolted, against whom he passed over with forces;
6. And then, immediately after, news came that the Megarians were turned their enemies,
7. And a hostile army was on the borders of Attica, under the conduct of Plistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians.
8. So Pericles hastened back with his army from Euboea, to meet the invasion which threatened at home;
9. And did not venture to engage a numerous and brave army eager for battle; but perceiving that Plistoanax was a very young man,
10. And governed mostly by the counsel and advice of Cleandrides, whom the ephors had sent with him to be a guardian and assistant,
11. He secretly tested this youth’s integrity, and, in a short time, having corrupted him with money, persuaded him to withdraw the Peloponnesians from Attica.
12. When the army had retired and dispersed into their several states, the Lacedaemonians in anger fined their king so large a sum of money, that, unable to pay it, he quitted Lacedaemon;
13. While Cleandrides fled, and had sentence of death passed upon