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.  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.  Knowledge of physical science, while it puts an end to superstitious terrors, replaces them by a sound basis of piety.  It is said that once a ram with one horn was sent from the country as a present to Perikles, and that Lampon the prophet, as soon as he saw this strong horn growing out of the middle of the creature’s forehead, said that as there were two parties in the state, that of Thucydides and that of Perikles, he who possessed this mystic animal would unite the two into one.  Anaxagoras cut open the beast’s skull, and pointed out that its brain did not fill the whole space, but was sunken into the shape of an egg, and all collected at that part from which the horn grew.  At the time all men looked with admiration on Anaxagoras, but afterwards, when Thucydides had fallen, and all the state had become united under Perikles, they admired Lampon equally.