The ill success of the expedition of Cimon gave Pericles the
opportunity to place himself and the popular party in power at
Athens; for the constitutional reforms that had been gradually
weakening the power of the aristocracy were now made available
to sweep it almost entirely away. The following extract from
BULWER'S Athens briefly yet fully tells what was accomplished
in this direction:

"The Constitution previous to Solon was an oligarchy of birth.
Solon rendered it an aristocracy of property. Clisthenes widened
its basis from property to population; and it was also Clisthenes,
in all probability, who weakened the more illicit and oppressive
influences of wealth by establishing the ballot of secret suffrage,
instead of the open voting which was common in the time of Solon.
The Areop'agus was designed by Solon as the aristocratic balance
to the popular assembly. This constitutional bulwark of the
aristocratic party of Athens became more and more invidious to
the people, and when Cimon resisted every innovation on that
assembly he only insured his own destruction, while he expedited
the policy he denounced. Ephial'tes, the friend and spokesman of
Pericles, directed all the force of the popular opinion against
this venerable senate; and at length, though not openly assisted
by Pericles, who took no prominent part in the contention, that
influential statesman succeeded in crippling its functions and
limiting its authority."

With regard to the nature of the constitutional changes effected,
the same writer adds: "It appears to me most probable that the
Areopagus retained the right of adjudging cases of homicide, and
little besides of its ancient constitutional authority; that it