d by the mob to
Aspasia came from the fact that she was not legally married to Pericles,
and for no other reason. That their union was not legal was owing to the
simple fact that Pericles, early in his career, had caused a law to be
passed making marriage between an Athenian and an alien morganatic: very
much as in England, for a time, the children of a marriage where one
parent was a Catholic and the other a Protestant were declared by the
State to be illegitimate. The act of Pericles in spreading a net for his
rival and getting caught in it himself is a beautiful example of the
truth of a bucolic maxim, "Chickens most generally come home to roost."

Thucydides says that for thirty years Pericles never dined away from
home but once. He kept out of crowds, and was very seldom seen at public
gatherings. The idea held by many was that a man who thus preferred his
home and the society of a woman was either silly or bad, or both.
Socrates, for instance, never went home as long as there was any other
place to go, which reminds us of a certain American statesman who met a
friend on the street, the hour being near midnight. "Where are you
going, Bill?" asked the statesman. "Home," said Bill. "What!" said the
statesman, "haven't you any place to go?" The Athenian men spent their
spare time in the streets and marketplaces--this was to them what the
daily paper is to us.

In his home life Pericles was simple, unpretentious and free from all
extravagance. No charge could ever be brought against him that he was
wasting the public money for himself--the beauty he materialized was for
all. He held no court, had no carriages, equipage, nor guards; wore no
insignia of office, and had no title save that of "First Citizen" given
him by the people. He is the supreme type of a man who, though holding
no public office, yet ruled like a monarch, and, best of all, ruled his
own spirit. There is no government so near perfect as that of an
absolute monarchy--where the monarch is wise and just.

* * * * *

Greece is a beautiful dream. Dreams do not endure, yet they are a part
of life, no less than the practical deeds of the day. The glory of
Greece could not last; its limit was thirty years--one generation. The
splendor of Athens was built on tribute and conquest, and the lesson of
it all lies in this: For thirty years Pericles turned the revenues of
war into art, beauty and usefulness.

England spent more in