The Portland daily press., 1880-11-15
The Age of Pericles IN Athens.

A large and attentive audience listened to
the lecture on this subject given by Rev. Mr..
Dalton on Saturday afternoon. After brief
recapitulation of the laws of historic growth
developed in the first lecture, the speaker pro
posed to illustrate and apply them in this and
the following lectures. Everything that
grows" he said ''has three distinct stages OF
existence, viz: The period of peril, when it
struggles for life and encounters resistance
from many quarters; second, of maturity,
when it is at its best, and does its best work
or bears its best fruit; third, of decline, which
is often at first imperceptible, but which be-
comes apparent in time, and though every eff
fort is made to arrest this decline it is not ar
rested, but goes on, slowly or rapidly, till its
issue is death. This is the universal and ire
versble law governing all that u.s. or that will
be. 1t has for its obedient though not always
willing subjects plants and animals, men and
nations, each race of men, and all men, all arts,
sciences, literatures, and philosophers. And
even in religion, when rites, ceremonies,
creeds and worships wax old and decay, they
are ready to vanish away"
"In the application of this law to Greece
maintained that Greece had conferred more
and greater benefits on the world than any
other nation, ancient or modern. Fur her,
what Greece has been to other nations and
civilizations, that Athens was to Greece. And
what Athens was to Greece, that the age of
Pericles was to Athens, viz: Its greatest gio-
~, as the age III which Athens did her best
work and won her imperishable renOwn. And
what that age was TO Athens, that Pericles
vas to the age to which lie has given Ills great
name and his unequalled fame, as an everlast-
ing possession.
Greece was country but little larger than
the State of Maine, and divided into three
parts-northern, middle and southern states
as our own country is. Sparta was the CAPITAL
Of the southern states, and Athens of the mid
die. Sparta was monarch c J.; At ems divided,
out with democratic dfitt. --fae Greeks, as
to origin, like all great nations, were of a
mixed race, but the Dorian and Ionian were
the principal. Athens belonged to the second
of these divisions, and was always the most
advanced and progressive of all Grecian cities.
Athens and Sparta were fierce rivals. but hap
ply united their forces in the first and second
Persian wars, and succeeded in beating off the
invaders and repeling the invasion, which, il
successful, would haze stranged European
civilization in its cradle.
Leonidas was the Spartan and Miltiades the
Athe1ian hero in the first invasion of the Per-
slams In the second Pausanias was the Spar
tan and Themistoces the Atheniau c0mman-
der. the first of The land and the second of the
sea forces. Afterwards, Paesanias became a
traitor to Sparta and Greece, and Themsto-
Giles, the leader of the Athenian democracy,
with Aristldes for his opponent who person.
ally was sounder man though leader of a for
Torn hope and a cause soon to be lost. Them
istocies was banished and died in exile vol
untary death, rather than take up arms against
Athens. PericleS twas his successor on the
popular side, and directed the affairs of the
city wholly for fifteen, and partly, for thirty
years, dying at about sixty years OF age III the
great plague which carried off fourth OF the
Athenans in the second year of the Pelopo-
uesian war. Cimon son of Mitiades, led the
oligarchy after the death of Arstdes, but he
was vanqushed and banished by the influence
of Pericles.
In the fifteen or twenty years of Pericles
administration, Athens became the first OF
naval powers, planted and governed colonies
i'll the Egean and other seas, aud along the
coast OF Asia Minor from Cyprus to CONSTANT
nople for thousand miles. Her commerce
and wealth increased fourfold, her greatest
public buildings were erected, including the
long walls to the Pir8us, five miles long and
sixty feet high, while science, philosophy, lit
erature and the arts HourShed as never before
or since For this was the age of Phidias, of
Callicrates of Socrates, . naxagoras, Plato,
Helodotus. Thucydides, Sophoces, Enripi-
DIES, and many other stars OF the first magnl-
tude in the Grecian constellation.
In conclusion. the lecturer showed that
Pericles was on the whole the first citizen, the
first and greatest man, of the greatest age of
Greece, superior to his successors as to all
who had preceded him, having the most COM
prehensive culture and views, and most varied
powers. He compared his manners and gen.
eral bearing in public to that OF Pitt Fessen-
den of our own city, and still more did he re-
semble Gladstone, in his fine en- lowments,
deep and varied culture, and wide and gener-
Gus sympathies.
The next lecture will be on the Age OF Au-
gustus in Rome, and we are assured, will not
exceed one hour in length. The lectures be-
gin punctually at 4 p m.