XV.  As now there was no opposition to encounter in the city, and all parties had been blended into one, Perikles undertook the sole administration of the home and foreign affairs of Athens, dealing with the public revenue, the army, the navy, the islands and maritime affairs, and the great sources of strength which Athens derived from her alliances, as well with Greek as with foreign princes and states.  Henceforth he became quite a different man:  he no longer gave way to the people, and ceased to watch the breath of popular favour; but he changed the loose and licentious democracy, which had hitherto existed, into a stricter aristocratic, or rather monarchical, form of government.  This he used honourably and unswervingly for the public benefit, finding the people, as a rule, willing to second the measures which he explained to them to be necessary, and to which he asked their consent, but occasionally having to use violence, and to force them, much against their will, to do what was expedient; like a physician dealing with some complicated disorder, who at one time allows his patient innocent recreation, and at another inflicts upon him sharp pains and bitter, though salutary, draughts.  Every possible kind of disorder was to be found among a people possessing so great an empire as the Athenians; and he alone was able to bring them into harmony, by playing alternately upon their hopes and fears, checking them when over-confident, and raising their spirits when they were cast down and disheartened.  Thus, as Plato says, he was able to prove that oratory is the art of influencing men’s minds, and to use it in its highest application, when it deals with men’s passions and characters, which, like certain strings of a musical instrument, require a skilful and delicate touch.  The secret of his power is to be found, however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory, as in his pure and blameless life, because he was so well known to be incorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he made the city, which was a great one, into the greatest and richest city of Greece, and though he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns, who were able to leave their kingdoms to their sons, yet Perikles did not increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from his father.

XVI.  This is the clear account of his power which is given by Thucydides the historian; though the comic poets misrepresent him atrociously, calling his immediate followers the New Peisistratidae, and calling upon him to swear that he never would make himself despot, as though his pre-eminence was not to be borne in a free state.  And Telekleides says, that the Athenians delivered up into his hands

    “The tribute from the towns, the towns themselves,
    The city walls, to build or to destroy,
    The right of making either peace or war,
    And all the wealth and produce of the land.”