One thing that helped them make Athens more beautiful than it had ever been before was this very war. Let me tell you how this was. All those cities in the Ægean Sea and in Asia Minor that we have spoken of were now free from Persia, but they were still afraid of the great Persian king. They thought Athens the strongest city of Greece, and wanted her to help them. So Athens and about two hundred of the cities around and in the Ægean Sea joined in a league, with Athens at the head. Another league was formed of the cities in southern Greece with Sparta at the head. Once a year men from each of these leagues met on the island of Delos to worship and to talk over important things about the union. If any of the cities had warships, they gave them to Athens to use; or if they had none, they gave money each year, and Athens built ships with it. This money was kept in Apollo's temple, on the island of Delos, and the temple grew very rich. But after a while Athens had as many ships as she thought she needed, and as the Persians did not come back again, she began to use this money to build up her own city. Thus you see how this war helped to make Athens more beautiful than she had ever been before. Besides making her people free and proud of their city, it gave them plenty of money to use.

I want to tell you now about a great man who lived in Athens at this time, and did more than any one else to make the city great and beautiful. His name was Pericles. He was a very handsome man, but that is not why we remember him. He was such a fine speaker that he generally made the Athenians believe what he said, and he easily led them to do what he wanted them to do. But even that is not the great thing. It is because he got them to do so many wise things and made Athens great as well as himself, that we remember him. Pericles had many wonderful buildings erected; some of them I want to tell you about. I wish I might take you there and let you see them all as they were. If we could really go to Athens, we could see only the ruins of many of them, and often only the places where some stood; for you must remember that Pericles has been dead more than two thousand years, and the beautiful buildings he had built are, many of them, crumbling to pieces, and some of them are entirely gone. Since we cannot see them, let us, with the help of what I can tell you from books I have read, try to get some idea of what Athens was like when Pericles lived.

You remember the Acropolis, of course, but you would hardly know it now. You must imagine it in the southwestern part of the city, a steep, high hill a thousand feet long and five hundred wide, with walls around the top to make it still steeper, so that no enemy could climb up the sides. Pericles had a flight of steps built up on the west side. They were seventy-one feet wide, rose by a gentle slope upward and were easy to climb. Let us imagine ourselves at the foot of these steps, ready to go up and look at Athens in all her beauty. Can you think how it would really seem to be there, with marble buildings and statues all around us? Now we will climb the steps, and when we come to the top we will pass into what they call a colonnade, which is much like a long path, bordered with beautiful columns and covered over; in fact, it was just two long rows of tall, beautiful columns holding up a roof. The gateways opening into this colonnade were called the Propylæa, and the Greeks were very proud of them, for they formed most beautiful openings leading up to the doors of the temples.

After we pass through the Propylæa, we find ourselves on top of the Acropolis, facing the east, for we came up the west side. Almost in front of us is a great image of Athena, who, you remember, was Athens' best-loved goddess. This image, or statue, as it was called, was so tall that men far out at sea, miles away from Athens, could see it. It made the Athenians very happy to feel that Athena was thus watching over them and ready to help them. On our right hand, still facing east, was the most beautiful temple of Greece, and indeed, though there have been many greater ones, there has never been another one built in the world quite so graceful and pleasing. It was built in honor of and as the home of Athena, and was called the Parthenon. It was 226 feet long, 101 feet wide, and it took sixteen years to build it. A little distance away, it looks as if it were mostly rows of columns and not much building, but there are two large rooms, which are surrounded by the columns you see,—one is used in which to store the gold belonging to the Delian league of which I told you a little while ago. It is kept in Athens now, instead of at Delos. In the second room is one of the most beautiful statues that was ever made. You would know right away it was Athena, by her helmet and shield and the serpent coiled at her feet. It was made of ivory and gold, by Phidias, one of the very greatest artists of the world, who could carve marble or ivory into most beautiful shapes of men, women and animals. In many places on the Parthenon we can find Phidias' work. Here at the end, right under the roof, is some, and inside, clear around the rooms I told you of, is a broad strip of carved work which he did. Over on another part of the Acropolis is another very beautiful temple, called the Erechtheum, because it was built for the god Erechtheus. One odd as well as beautiful part of it was the porches, which instead of pillars to hold them up had figures of beautiful maidens carved in stone. We could stay a long time on the Acropolis, because, though not very large, it has a great many things to see; but let us pass again through the Propylæa, down the steps and into the city, for I want you to see some other wonderful things which Pericles gave to Athens.

You will be interested in what the boys of Athens are doing, so I will take you now to a gymnasium, for the Greeks loved a straight, healthy body quite as much as a beautiful building or statue. Pericles was one who believed that Athens needed strong, brave, perfect men, and the best way he knew to get them was to train together both the bodies and minds of the boys. So he did all he could to make their gymnasiums beautiful, and fitted them up with everything they needed in their exercises. They were all outside the city, so we will have to leave Athens to see them. All the Athenian boys are sent to the gymnasium as soon as they are old enough, and they spend the whole day, from sunrise to sunset, there. What do they all do there? I cannot begin to tell you all of it. They have teachers, who teach them the different exercises that are to make them strong and manly as well as beautiful; and the Greeks believed that to have a beautiful mind one must have also a beautiful body. They are stripped in the gymnasium of all their clothing, for the Athenian boys must learn to bear the hot sun or the cold winds without flinching; but you remember that the climate of Greece was generally very delightful, neither very cold nor very hot. In one part of the gymnasium is a race course, sprinkled several inches deep with loose sand, where the boys race with each other; not very easy work, do you think? The sand is put there on purpose to make it hard for them to run. In another place you see boys getting ready to wrestle; their bodies are oiled, then sprinkled over with fine sand, so they can hold each other better. This is rough work, but it exercises the whole body, and so is good for health and strength. We must not stop to see the other work now, but I may tell you that besides these exercises they are taught among others to box, throw the spear, jump, wrestle and run races. But the Greeks did not like a man who could use only his body and not his mind, so they wanted their boys taught more than bodily exercise. All around three sides of the gymnasium were halls, with seats in them, where people could sit and talk. If you come with me to one of these halls, you will see one of the most interesting things in Greece, and I believe you will think it a fine kind of school. Here is a group of boys gathered around a man who is talking to them in a very plain, friendly way. Does that look like a school? Not much like our schools, you will say. Before we join the group I will tell you a little about the teacher, so you will understand better what they are doing. He is one of the men whom the Greeks call philosophers, which means lovers of knowledge.  These men spend their lives trying to find out the truth about everything. They wish to know how the world came to be, what men ought to live for, and how a man should act in order that his life may be made best worth living. They meet the boys and young men and talk about these things with them. The boys ask them questions, and they answer the best they can, and ask questions of the boys in turn. These philosophers, especially those like the one I am going to tell you about, because they thought so much of simple life and were interested in common plain people wherever they met them, were much like our great Lincoln. Now we will go and see what this group is talking about. You must not laugh at the odd look of the teacher. He does not look like a Greek, for he is very ugly. His body is heavy and not at all a good shape, his nose is flat, and his eyes bulge out, and roll about in a very strange way. He is not at all well dressed, but these boys all seem to love him dearly; and after we listen a while and hear his fine lesson, showing that the beauty which springs from a well-trained mind is the greatest and truest beauty one can have, you forget how ugly he is, and wish you were an Athenian boy, and might come, when your lesson in the gymnasium is over, and talk to this wonderful man. Do you know the name of this great teacher? It is Socrates, the greatest philosopher of Greece. We must not think when we leave the gymnasium and go back to the city we shall not see Socrates again, for he is everywhere, from day to day,—in the streets or wherever he finds young men ready to listen and to talk about temperance, or play, or oratory, or eloquence, or any question about how to get most pleasure and profit out of life. He begins always by saying something that causes those who hear him to listen and think, and before they know it he has them taking a lively part in the discussion. As you cannot stay long in Athens, I will tell you, before we go on, what is to become of Socrates at last. It is very sad. He is never afraid to tell people when they are wrong; and he thinks many things men do are wrong, and tells them so. For this reason many people dislike him, and finally they say that he does not truly worship the Greek gods, and that he teaches the young men bad habits, because some of his pupils are very bad men. This is not because of what Socrates teaches them, but because they do not follow what he teaches. But the people do not believe this, and they say he must die. So they compel him to drink a cup of poison, and he takes it very bravely, with his sorrowing pupils about him, calmly teaching them to the very last how to live a true life in this world, and giving them some of the best reasons for believing in a life after death.