There is, I imagine, no reason why both the prophet and the natural philosopher should not have been right, the one discovering the cause, and the other the meaning.  The one considered why the horn grew so, and for what reason; the other declared what it meant by growing so, and for what end it took place.  Those who say that when the cause of a portent is found out the portent is explained away, do not reflect that the same reasoning which explains away heavenly portents would also put an end to the meaning of the conventional signals used by mankind.  The ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning.  But perhaps all this belongs to another subject.

VII.  Perikles when young greatly feared the people.  He had a certain personal likeness to the despot Peisistratus; and as his own voice was sweet, and he was ready and fluent in speech, old men who had known Peisistratus were struck by his resemblance to him.  He was also rich, of noble birth, and had powerful friends, so that he feared he might be banished by ostracism, and consequently held aloof from politics, but proved himself a brave and daring soldier in the wars.  But when Aristeides was dead, Themistokles banished, and Kimon generally absent on distant campaigns, Perikles engaged in public affairs, taking the popular side, that of the poor and many against that of the rich and few, quite contrary to his own feelings, which were entirely aristocratic.  He feared, it seems, that he might be suspected of a design to make himself despot, and seeing that Kimon took the side of the nobility, and was much beloved by them, he betook himself to the people, as a means of obtaining safety for himself, and a strong party to combat that of Kimon.  He immediately altered his mode of life; was never seen in any street except that which led to the market-place and the national assembly, and declined all invitations to dinner and such like social gatherings, so utterly that during the whole of his long political life he never dined with one of his friends, except when his first cousin, Euryptolemus, was married.  On this occasion he sat at table till the libations were poured, upon which he at once got up and went away.  For solemnity is wont to unbend at festive gatherings, and a majestic demeanour is hard to keep up when one is in familiar intercourse with others.  True virtue, indeed, appears more glorious the more it is seen, and a really good man’s life is never so much admired by the outside world as by his own intimate friends.  But Perikles feared to make himself too common even with the people, and only addressed them after long intervals—­not speaking upon every subject, and, not constantly addressing them, but, as Kritolaus says, keeping himself like the Salaminian trireme for great crises, and allowing his friends and the other orators to manage matters of less moment.  One of these friends is said to have been Ephialtes, who destroyed the power of the Council of the Areopagus, “pouring out,” as Plato, the comic poet, said, “a full and unmixed draught of liberty for the citizens,” under the influence of which the poets of the time said that the Athenian people