"
"Arrested? Phidias!" "They say that he has represented me and
himself in Athene's shield."
"That is the mob's doing, which hates all greatness! Anaxagoras
banished because he was too wise; Aristides banished because he was
too just; Themistocles, Pausanias.... What did you do, Pericles,
when you gave the people power?"
"What was lawful and right. I fall certainly by my own sword, but
honourably. I go about and am dying piecemeal, like Athens. Did we
know that we adorned our statues for a funeral procession? that we
were weaving our own shrouds? that the choruses of our tragedies
were dirges?"
"Athens is dying--yes! But of what?"
"Of Sparta."
"What is Sparta?"
"Sparta is Heracles; the club, the lion-skin, brute-strength. We
Athenians are the sons of Theseus, ranged against the Heraclidae,
Dorians, and Ionians. Athens dies by Sparta's hand, but Hellas dies
by her own."
"I believe the gods have forsaken us."
"I believe so too, but the Divine lives."
"There comes Nicias, the messenger of misfortune."
It was Nicias; and when he read the question in the faces and
glances of the two, he answered, without waiting to be asked: "From
the Agora!"
"What is the news from the Agora?"
"The Assembly seeks help from the Macedonians."
"Why not from the Persians? Good! then the end is near.
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