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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
In his discourse on the causes of the Peloponnesian War (Pericles 31–32), Plutarch devotes an inordinate time to what he calls ‘the worst charge [against Pericles], but that having the greatest number of supporters’. The elements of this charge may be outlined briefly:
1. Pheidias was indicted for embezzling the precious materials used in the construction of the great statue of Athena Parthenos. The informer was a certain Menon, a fellow workman, who was subsequently given immunity and tax-free status by a decree of the assembly proposed by Glycon.
2. At the same time, Pericles' consort Aspasia was indicted and his friend and teacher Anaxagoras was attacked indirectly through a law against religious nonconformity brought by Diopeithes.
3. While the people were still in this mood, Dracontides had a decree passed, requiring that Pericles' accounts be deposited with the council and that the dicasts try any resulting cases on the acropolis with ballots specially sanctified at the altar. This last clause was stricken from the bill by Hagnon, who specified that any resulting suits were to be tried by a jury of 1,500.
4. Because of all these attacks, Pericles resolved to start the war, using the Megarian decree as provocation.
Plutarch reports here the popular fancy—that Pericles started a foreign war to avoid domestic embarrassments. The development of this tradition is a well-known chapter in the history of Greek literature, but as it is fundamental to this discussion, a brief review is called for.
1 The biographer reveals elsewhere that he knew the stories to be inventions by the comic poets, De Hdt. Mal. 6. 856A. The theme had also been developed by Cratinus in the Dionysalexander (the argument has survived in P. Oxy. iv no. 663).
2 Ed. Meyer, , Forschungen zur alten Geschichte ii 299–301, 327–33Google Scholar; Adcock, F. E., CAH v 477–80Google Scholar; Gomme, A. W., Historical Commentary on Thucydides [HCT] ii 184–9Google Scholar; in particular, Jacoby, F., FGrH IIIb Suppl., 484–96Google Scholar (commentary to Philochorus, 328 F 121).
3 Generally thought to be a parody on the beginning of Herodotus' history; see Gomme, , HCT i 450.Google Scholar
4 de Romilly, J., Thucydide et l'imperialisme Athénien, (Paris, 1951) 22.Google Scholar
5 Jacoby, , FGrH IIIb Suppl., 490.Google Scholar
6 Ephorus (FGrH 70 F 196) cited by Diodorus xii 38–41.1. Jacoby, , FGrH IIC, 92–3Google Scholar, would attribute the anecdote in Diod. xii 38.2–4 to a source other than Ephorus; see, however, the arguments of the editors of ATL iii 121–5 and 122, n. 12.
7 See, for instance, Suda s.v. ‘Pheidias’; Aristodemus, 16 (FGrH 104 F 1). Arist, knew all the stories, but preferred (19) Thucydides' explanation: Spartan fear of Athenian greatness (i 23.6).
8 Diod. xii 40.2: ‘4000 talents had been spent on the building of the Propylaea and the siege of Potidaea.’ Thuc. (ii 70.2) says 2,000 talents were spent on the siege. For an explanation of Ephorus' arithmetic see ATL iii 123–4. Heliodorus' figure of 2012 T is generally admitted to be far too large; see ATL iii 124, n. 15; Gomme, , HCT ii 22–23.Google Scholar
9 Meyer believed Val. Max. to be repeating Ephorus in more detail than Diodorus; Forschungen ii 330–1.
10 Philochorus, , FGrH 328Google Scholar F 121. Lendle, O., ‘Philochoros über den Prozess des Phidias’, Hermes lxxxiii (1955) 284–303Google Scholar, has reinterpreted the text of the scholion, allowing Philochorus to date the Phidias prosecution to 432/1, but most of his arguments have been anticipated by Jacoby and others: see following note.
11 Dinsmoor, W. B., AJA xvii (1913) 70–1Google Scholar, held that the statue was finished in 438/7, but that Pheidias continued working in Athens and was prosecuted later. But why did Pheidias' co-worker Menon wait six years to inform? That the indictment immediately followed the dedication of the statue seems required by the evidence: Meyer, , Forschungen ii 301Google Scholar: ‘wir haben kein Recht, das Datum des Philochoros über die Weihung des Bildes zu verwerfen, und Rechenschaftsablage und Process sind davon nicht zu trennen’. This view is strongly supported by Adcock, , CAH v 480Google Scholar; Jacoby, , FGrH IIIb Suppl., 496.Google Scholar
Emil Kunze now reports from the excavation of Pheidias' workshop at Olympia that moulds used by the sculptor in creating the chryselephantine Zeus there have been found in a context dateable to the last third of the century: Neue deutsche Ausgrabungen im Mittelmeer gebiet und im vorderen Orient (Berlin, 1959) 278–94.
12 So Meyer, , Forschungen ii 329Google Scholar; Jacoby, , FGrH IIIb, 88Google Scholar (to Idomeneus, 338 F 9); Meinhardt, E., Perikles bei Plutarch (Frankfurt, 1957) 61.Google Scholar
13 Jacoby, , Atthis 209.Google Scholar
14 CAH v 478; Jacoby, , FGrH IIIb, 88Google Scholar: ‘Ich habe keinen zweifel dass Plutarch mit der δίκη [i.e. of 430] eben dieses psephisma meint.’
15 The classical example is the light-hearted exchange of generals—Cleon for Nicias—in 424 (Thuc. iv 27.4–28) concerning which Plutarch says [Nic. 8) Nicias 
Can a regular ἀποχεφοτονία have been much more complex?
18 That the impeachment was hasty and poorly remembered is indicated by the confusion over the name of the prosecutor in Plut., Per. 35.5: according to Idomeneus, it was Cleon; Theophrastus said Simmias; Heracleides Ponticus, Lacrateides. Plutarch evidently found the account of Theophrastus most convincing, as Simmias is so identified again in Praec. Ger. Reip. 10, 805c.
17 Philochorus (F 121) as quoted by the scholiast says only Περικλέους ἐπιστατοῦντος, which seems to be his usual wording in the interests of brevity (cf. F 37 on the Lyceum); see also Aristodemus, (FGrH 104)Google Scholar 16.1: ἐργεπιστάτην τὸν Περικλέα, etc. Pericles, of course, was only one of a board of epistatae. The building accounts (IG i2 354–62; SEG x 261) gave the names of the treasurers, but only the secretary of the epistatae.
18 Adcock, , CAH v 478.Google Scholar
19 The scholiast to Peace 605 makes it clear that Philochorus said Pheidias ἐζημιώθη φνγῇ. As the source is unknown for Plutarch's statement that Pheidias was imprisoned, although no theft was proved, and that he died in prison, such a claim should perhaps be. ignored, pace Gomme, , HCT ii 186–7.Google Scholar
20 Hagnon was himself attacked by comedy as having enriched himself during a magistracy; Cratinus, Ploutoi, in Page, D. L., Greek Literary Papyri 200.Google Scholar For his identification with the democratic faction, see the remark of Critias, Xen., Hell. ii 3.30.
21 Thuc. ii 21.1; Plut. Per. 22.3, 23.1 (according to Ephorus, FGrH 70 F 193, the sum was 20 talents).
22 Thuc. iv 102.3–4; v 11.1.
