Platonic Socrates gives an amusing satirical description of the ardent disciples hanging on the
words of the eminent visitor. Pericles, as we shall see, imported Anaxagoras, from whom Socrates
professed to have learned the pre-eminence of mind in creation.
Most of Plato's dialogues are supposed by him to take place during the time of Pericles, and they
give an agreeable picture of life among the rich. Plato belonged to an aristocratic Athenian family,
and grew up in the tradition of the period before war and democracy had destroyed the wealth and
security of the upper classes. His young men, who have no need to work, spend most of their
leisure in the pursuit of science and mathematics and philosophy; they know Homer almost by
heart, and are critical judges of the merits of professional reciters of poetry. The art of deductive
reasoning had been lately discovered, and afforded the excitement of new theories, both true and
false, over the whole field of knowledge. It was possible in that age, as in few others, to be both
intelligent and happy, and happy through intelligence.
But the balance of forces which produced this golden age was precarious. It was threatened both
from within and from without-from within by the democracy, and from without by Sparta. To
understand what happened after Pericles, we must consider briefly the earlier history of Attica.
Attica, at the beginning of the historical period, was a self-supporting little agricultural region;
Athens, its capital, was not large, but contained a growing population of artisans and skilled
artificers who desired to dispose of their produce abroad. Gradually it was found more profitable
to cultivate vines and olives rather than grain, and to import grain, chiefly from the coast of the
Black Sea. This form of cultivation required more capital than the cultivation of grain, and the
small farmers got into debt. Attica, like other Greek states, had been a monarchy in the Homeric
age, but the king became a merely religious official without political power. The government fell
into the hands of the aristocracy, who oppressed both the country farmers and the urban artisans.
A compromise in the direction of democracy was effected by Solon early in the sixth century, and
much of his work survived through a subsequent period of tyranny under Peisistratus and his sons.
When this period came to an end, the aristo-