out among the people, helping and encouraging them, and he finally
caught the plague himself.

His friends soon saw, that, in spite of all their efforts, he would die.
They crowded around his bed in tears, praising him in low tones, and
saying how much he had done for the Athenians and for the improvement of
their city.

"Why," said one of them warmly, "he found the city bricks, and leaves it
marble!"

Pericles, whose eyes had been closed, and who seemed unconscious, now
suddenly roused himself, and said, "Why do you mention those things?
They were mostly owing to my large fortune. The thing of which I am
proudest is that I never caused any fellow-citizen to put on mourning!"

Pericles then sank back, and soon died; but his friends always
remembered that he had ruled Athens for more than thirty years without
ever punishing any one unjustly, and that he had always proved helpful
and merciful to all.

LXII. THE PHILOSOPHER SOCRATES.

When Pericles died, the Peloponnesian War had already been carried on
for more than three years, but was not nearly at an end. As the
Athenians felt the need of a leader, they soon chose Nic'ias to take the
place left vacant by Pericles.

This Nicias was an honest man; but he was unfortunately rather dull, and
very slow about deciding anything. Whenever he was called upon to see to
matters of state, he hesitated so long, and was so uncertain, that the
Greeks often had cause to regret the loss of Pericles.

There was another man of note in Athens at this time, the philosopher
Socrates, a truly wise and good man. He was no politician, however; and,
instead of troubling himself about the state, he spent all his spare
moments in studying, or in teaching the young men of Athens.

Like his friend Anaxagoras, Socrates was a very deep thinker. He, too,
always tried to find out the exact truth about everything. He was
specially anxious to know how the earth had been created, who the Being
was who gave us life, and whether the soul died with the body, or
continued to live after the body had fallen into dust.

Socrates was a poor man, a stonecutter by trade; but he spent every
moment he could spare from his work in thinking, studying, and
questioning others. Little by little, in spite of the contrary opinion
of his fellow-citizens, he began to understand that the stories of the
Greek gods and goddesses could not be true.

He thought that there must surely be a God far greater than t