the Peloponnesian War that followed the fall and death of Pericles, and reflects in his plays the
scepticism of the later period. His contemporary Aristophanes, the comic poet, makes fun of all
isms from the standpoint of robust and limited common sense; more particularly, he holds up
Socrates to obloquy as one who denies the existence of Zeus and dabbles in unholy pseudo-
scientific mysteries.
Athens had been captured by Xerxes, and the temples on the Acropolis had been destroyed by fire.
Pericles devoted himself to their reconstruction. The Parthenon and the other temples whose ruins
remain to impress our age were built by him. Pheidias the sculptor was employed by the State to
make colossal statues of gods and goddesses. At the end of this period, Athens was the most
beautiful and splendid city of the Hellenic world.
Herodotus, the father of history, was a native of Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor, but lived in Athens,
was encouraged by the Athenian State, and wrote his account of the Persian wars from the
Athenian point of view.
The achievements of Athens in the time of Pericles are perhaps the most astonishing thing in all
history. Until that time, Athens had lagged behind many other Greek cities; neither in art nor in
literature had it produced any great man (except Solon, who was primarily a lawgiver). Suddenly,
under the stimulus of victory and wealth and the need of reconstruction, architects, sculptors, and
dramatists, who remain unsurpassed to the present day, produced works which dominated the
future down to modern times. This is the more surprising when we consider the smallness of the
population involved. Athens at its maximum, about 430 B.C., is estimated to have numbered
about 230,000 (including slaves), and the surrounding territory of rural Attica probably contained
a rather smaller population. Never before or since has anything approaching the same proportion
of the inhabitants of any area shown itself capable of work of the highest excellence.
In philosophy, Athens contributes only two great names, Socrates and Plato. Plato belongs to a
somewhat later period, but Socrates passed his youth and early manhood under Pericles. The
Athenians were sufficiently interested in philosophy to listen eagerly to teachers from other cities.
The Sophists were sought after by young men who wished to learn the art of disputation; in the
Protagoras, the