The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [289]
12. And he endeavoured to appease those who were eager to fight, saying that ‘trees, when they are lopped and cut, grow up again in a short time, but men, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered’.
13. He did not convene the people into an assembly, for fear lest they should force him to act against his judgement;
14. But, like a skilful steersman, who, when a sudden squall comes on at sea, makes all his arrangements, sees that all is tight and fast,
15. And then follows the dictates of his skill, taking no notice of the tears and entreaties of the seasick and fearful passengers,
16. So he, having shut the city gates and posted guards, followed his own judgement,
17. Little regarding those who cried out against him; although many of his friends urged him, and many of his enemies threatened and accused him,
18. And many made songs and lampoons upon him, which were sung about the town to his disgrace,
19. Reproaching him with the cowardly exercise of his office of general, and the tame abandonment of everything to the enemy’s hands.
20. Cleon was already among his assailants, making use of the feeling against him as a step to the leadership of the people, as appears in the verses of Hermippus:
21. ‘Satyr-king, instead of swords, Will you always handle words? Very brave indeed we find them, But a Teles lurks behind them.
22. ‘Yet to gnash your teeth you’re seen, When the little dagger keen, Whetted every day anew, Of sharp Cleon touches you.’
23. Pericles, however, was unmoved by these attacks, but took all patiently, and submitted in silence to the disgrace they threw upon him and the ill-will they bore him;
24. And sending out a fleet of a hundred galleys to Peloponnesus, he did not go along with it in person,
25. But stayed behind, that he might watch at home and keep the city under his own control, till the Peloponnesians broke up their camp and were gone.
26. Yet to soothe the common people, jaded and distressed with the war, he relieved them with distributions of public moneys,
27. And ordained new divisions of subject land. For having turned out all the people of Aegina, he parted the island among the Athenians according to lot.
28. Some comfort also, and ease in their miseries, they might receive from what their enemies endured.
29. For the fleet, sailing round the Peloponnese, ravaged a great deal of the country, and pillaged and plundered the towns and smaller cities;
30. And by land he himself entered with an army the Megarian country, and made havoc of it all.
Chapter 47
1. Whence it is clear that the Peloponnesians, though they did the Athenians much mischief by land,
2. Yet suffering as much themselves from them by sea, would not have protracted the war to such a length,
3. But would quickly have given it over, as Pericles at first foretold they would, had not accident entered the picture.
4. In the first place, plague seized upon the city, and ate up all the flower and prime of their youth and strength.
5. The people, afflicted in their minds as well as bodies, were enraged like madmen against Pericles,
6. And, like patients grown delirious, sought to lay violent hands on their physician, or, as it were, their father.
7. They had been persuaded by Pericles’ enemies that the reason for the plague was the crowding of the country people into the town,
8. Forcing everyone, in the heat of summer, to huddle together in small tenements and stifling hovels,
9. And to follow a lazy course of life within doors, whereas before they lived in the open air.
10. The author of all this, they said, is he who on account of the war has poured a multitude of people in upon us within the walls,
11. And uses all these men that he has here upon no employ or service, but keeps them pent up like cattle,
12. To be overrun with infection from one another, affording them neither shift of quarters nor any refreshment.
13. With the design to remedy these evils, and do the enemy some inconvenience, Pericles got a hundred and fifty galleys ready,
14. And having embarked many tried soldiers, both foot and