He was ridiculed by the comic poets;
thus Plato represents some one as addressing him,
"Answer me this, I humbly do beseech,
For thou, like Cheiron, Perikles did'st teach."
Perikles also attended the lectures of Zeno, of Elea, on natural
philosophy, in which that philosopher followed the method of Parmenides.
Zeno moreover had made an especial study of how to reduce any man to
silence who questioned him, and how to enclose him between the horns of
a dilemma, which is alluded to by Timon of Phlius in the following
verses:
"Nor weak the strength of him of two-edged tongue,
Zeno that carps at all."
But it was Anaxagoras of Klazomenae who had most to do with forming
Perikles's style, teaching him an elevation and sublimity of expression
beyond that of ordinary popular speakers, and altogether purifying and
ennobling his mind. This Anaxagoras was called Nous, or Intelligence, by
the men of that day, either because they admired his own intellect, or
because he taught that an abstract intelligence is to be traced in all
the concrete forms of matter, and that to this, and not to chance, the
universe owes its origin.
V. Perikles greatly admired Anaxagoras, and became deeply interested in
these grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty
style of oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also
an imperturbable gravity of countenance, and a calmness of demeanour and
appearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the
tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption.
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