the neighborhood of Eleusis. Having lost much of her empire, with
a fair prospect of losing all of it if hostilities continued,
Athens concluded a thirty years' truce with Sparta and her allies,
by the terms of which she abandoned her conquests in the
Peloponnesus, and Megara became an ally of Sparta (445 B.C.)


THE "AGE OF PERICLES."

With the close of the Persian contest, and the beginning of the
Thirty Years' truce, properly begins what has been termed the
"Age of Pericles"--the inauguration of a new and important era
of Athenian greatness and renown. Having won the highest military
honors and political ascendancy, Athens now took the lead in
intellectual progress. Themistocles and Cimon had restored to
Athens all that of which Xerxes had despoiled it--the former
having rebuilt its ruins, and the latter having given to its
public buildings a degree of magnificence previously unknown.
But Pericles surpassed them both:

He was the ruler of the land
When Athens was the land of fame;
He was the light that led the band
When each was like a living flame;
The centre of earth's noblest ring,
Of more than men the more than king.

Yet not by fetter nor by spear
His sovereignty was held or won:
Feared--but alone as freemen fear;