up til his death.
For Xanthippus died in the plague time of the sickness. At which time
Pericles also lost his sister, and the greatest part of his relations
and friends, and those who had been most useful and serviceable to him
in managing the affairs of state. However, he did not shrink or give
in on these occasions, nor betray or lower his high spirit and even the
greatness of his mind under all his misfortunes; he was not even so much
as seen to weep or to mourn, or even attend the burial of his friends or
relations, till at last he lost his only remaining son. Subdued by this
blow, yet striving still, as far as he could, to maintain his principle,
and yet to preserve and keep up the greatness of his soul, when he came,
however, to perform the ceremony of putting a garland of flowers on the
head of the corpse, he was vanquished by his passion at the sight, so
that he burst into exclamations, and shed copious tears, having never
done any such thing in all his life before.

The city having made trial of other generals for the conduct of war, and
orators for business of state, when they found there was no one who was
of weight enough for such a charge, or of authority sufficient to be
trusted with so great a command, regretted the loss of him, and invited
him again to address and advise them, and to resume the office of
general. He, however, lay at home in dejection and mourning; but was
persuaded by Alcibiades and others of his friends to come abroad and
show himself to the people; who having, upon his appearance, made their
acknowledgements, and apologized for their untowardly treatment of him,
he undertook the public affairs once more.

About this time, it seems, the plague seized Pericles, not with sharp
and violent fits, as it did others that had it, but with a dull and
lingering distemper, attended with various changes and alterations,
leisurely, by little and little, wasting the strength of his body, and
undermining the noble faculties of his soul.

When he was now near his end, the best of citizens and those of his
friends who were left alive, sitting about him, were speaking of the
greatness of his merit, and his power, and reckoning up his famous
actions and the number of his victories; there were no less than nine
trophies which, as their chief commander and conqueror of their enemies,
he had set up, for the honor of the city. They talked thus among
themselves, as though he were unable to understand or mi