The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Athens, B.C. 494. Died B.C. 429. Aged 65.] For forty years at the head of the administration in Athens; twenty-five years in conjunction with others, and fifteen years alone. He was the pupil of Anaxagoras, from whom he derived philosophic equanimity and lofty principle. The eloquence of Pericles was a grand characteristic of the man, but not the grandest. When dying, he affirmed that his greatest honour had been, “that no Athenian, through his means, had ever put on mourning.” He promised the Athenians immortality; he secured it by means of the memorials of beauty which he left on the Athenian soil, now upwards of two thousand years ago. His oratory was rapid, penetrating, condensed, energetic, persuasive, graceful, and fertile in resources. His boundless influence was never degraded to unworthy purposes. Architecture, sculpture, and literature, reached their highest point under his protecting hand. Phidias was his director of public works; Sophocles and Euripides were his favoured friends. He governed with moderation and justice, and eschewing all aggression for the mere sake of conquest, endeavoured by every means to consolidate the dominion and to confirm the maritime power of Athens. His eloquence was the golden sceptre of his rule. He died in the great plague of Athens. [Pliny mentions a painted portrait of him by Aristolaus, and Christodorus states that his statue in bronze existed at Constantinople. Phidias, it is said, sculptured the portrait of his illustrious patron on the shield of the great Minerva, and the busts of him are taken from this figure. This bust is from the British Museum. There is also a bust of Pericles in the Vatican, which has the name on the breast. He wears the Corinthian helmet.]