which followed he succeeded in perfecting a state whose preeminence in
intellectual, political, and artistic development has had no rival.

In the later wars of Athens the renown of Pericles was still further
enhanced; but his chief glory arose from the architectural adornment of
the city, and especially from the building of the Parthenon and the
splendid decoration of the Acropolis; while his work of judicial reform
remains an added monument to his fame, and among the masters of
eloquence his orations preserve for him a foremost place.)


Pericles was of the tribe Acamantis, and of the township of Cholargos,
and was descended from the noblest families in Athens, on both his
father's and mother's side. His father, Xanthippus, defeated the Persian
generals at Mycale, while his mother, Agariste, was a descendant of
Clisthenes, who drove the sons of Pisistratus out of Athens, put an end
to their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirably
calculated to reconcile all parties and save the country. She dreamed
that she had brought forth a lion, and a few days afterward was
delivered of Pericles. His body was symmetrical, but his head was long,
out of all proportion; for which reason, in nearly all his statues he is
represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose,
to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called him
squill-head, and the comic poet Cratinus, in his play _Chirones_, says;

"From Chronos old and faction
Is sprung a tyrant dread,
And all Olympus calls him
The man-compelling head."