XXXI.  How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers agree in throwing on Perikles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree.  Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation, saying that the demand was merely made in order to try him, and that any concessions would have been regarded as a sign of weakness; while others say that he treated the Lacedaemonians so cavalierly through pride and a desire to show his own strength.  But the worst motive of all, and that to which most men attribute his conduct, was as follows:  Pheidias, the sculptor, was, as we have related, entrusted with the task of producing the statue of the tutelary goddess of Athens.  His intimacy with Perikles, with whom he had great influence, gained for him many enemies, who, wishing to experiment on the temper of the people towards Perikles himself, bribed Menon, one of Pheidias’s fellow-workmen, to seat himself in the market-place as a suppliant who begged that he might receive protection while he denounced and prosecuted Pheidias.  The people took this man under its protection, and Pheidias was prosecuted before the Senate.  The alleged charges of theft were not proved, for Pheidias, by the advice of Perikles, had originally fashioned the golden part of the statue in such a manner that it could all be taken off and weighed, and this Perikles bade the prosecutor do on this occasion.  But the glory which Pheidias obtained by the reality of his work made him an object of envy and hatred, especially when in his sculpture of the battle with the Amazons on the shield of the goddess he introduced his own portrait as a bald-headed old man lifting a great stone with both hands, and also a very fine representation of Perikles, fighting with an Amazon.  The position of the hand, which was holding a spear before the face of Perikles, was ingeniously devised as if to conceal the portrait, which, nevertheless, could plainly be seen on either side of it.  For this, Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles.  At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to provide for the wretch’s safety.

XXXII.  About the same time Aspasia was prosecuted for impiety, at the suit of Hermippus, the comic playwright, who moreover accused her of harbouring free-born Athenian ladies, with whom Perikles carried on intrigues.  Also Diopeithes proposed a decree, that prosecutions should be instituted against all persons who disbelieved in religion, and held theories of their own about heavenly phenomena.  This was aimed at Perikles through the philosopher Anaxagoras.  As the people adopted this decree, and eagerly listened to these slanderous accusations, another decree was carried by Drakontides, that Perikles should lay the accounts of his dealings with the public revenue before the Prytanes, and that the judges should carry their suffrage