These
advantages greatly impressed the people. Once he sat quietly all day in
the market-place despatching some pressing business, reviled in the
foulest terms all the while by some low worthless fellow. Towards
evening he walked home, the man following him and heaping abuse upon
him. When about to enter his own door, as it was dark, he ordered one of
his servants to take a torch and light the man home. The poet Ion,
however, says that Perikles was overbearing and insolent in
conversation, and that his pride had in it a great deal of contempt for
others; while he praises Kimon's civil, sensible, and polished address.
But we may disregard Ion, as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in
great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas
Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Perikles a mere
courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity
themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might
insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their
model.
VI. These were not the only advantages which Perikles gained from his
intimacy with Anaxagoras, but he seems to have learned to despise those
superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce in
those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about them,
refer them all to the immediate action of the gods.
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