sia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized
this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An
Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he
needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who
directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we
were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that
the Median war had gained for them.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve AEolian, four Dorian.

[72] Herod., i., 153.

[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104.

[74] 1,000 Plataeans came to the assistance of the Athenians.--ED.

[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are
incredible.--ED.

[76] Herod., vii., 61-80.

[77] vii., 139.

[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.--ED.

[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon
really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace
of Callias, who was probably principal ambassador.--ED.]

[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARTS IN GREECE

ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES

=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself
the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the
noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He
wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the
vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only
in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of
all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and
so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul
of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The
democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the
first citizen."

=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek
cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely
together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The
Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever
after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums
of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful
edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with
paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of
Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most
beautiful monuments rose