substituted to decide judicial cases, and repeal and enact laws; this,
says Grote, was the consummation of the Athenian democracy. And thus it
remained until the time of Demosthenes.

(M479) But the influence of Pericles is still more memorable from the
impulse he gave to the improvements of Athens and his patronage of art and
letters. He conceived the idea of investing his city with intellectual
glory, which is more permanent than any conquests of territory. And since
he could not make Athens the centre of political power, owing to the
jealousies of other States, he resolved to make her the great attraction
to all scholars, artists, and strangers. And his countrymen were prepared
to second his glorious objects, and were in a condition to do so, enriched
by commerce, rendered independent by successes over the Persians, and
jealous Grecian rivals, and stimulated by the poets and philosophers who
flourished in that glorious age. The age of Pericles is justly regarded as
the epoch of the highest creation genius ever exhibited, and gave to
Athens an intellectual supremacy which no military genius could have
secured.

(M480) The Persian war despoiled and depopulated Athens. The city was
rebuilt on a more extensive plan, and the streets were made more regular.
The long walls to the Peiraeus were completed--a double wall, as it were,
with a space between them large enough to secure the communication between
the city and the port, in case an enemy should gain a footing in the wide
space between the Peiraean and Thaleric walls. The port itself was
ornamented with beautiful public buildings, of which the Agora was the
most considerable. The theatre, called the Odeon, was erected in Athens
for musical and poetical contests. The Acropolis, with its temples, was
rebuilt, and the splendid Propylaea, of Doric architecture, formed a
magnificent approach to them. The temple of Athenae--the famous
Parthenon--was built of white marble, and adorned with sculptures in the
pediments and frieze by the greatest artists of antiquity, while Phidias
constructed the statue of the goddess of ivory and gold. No Doric temple
ever equaled the severe proportions and chaste beauty of the Parthenon,
and its ruins still are one of the wonders of the world. The Odeon and
Parthenon were finished during the first seven years of the administration
of Pericles, and many other temples were constructed in various parts of
Attica. The genius of Phidias is seen in