The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

Tanagra. In this way was the Council of Areopagus deprived of
its guardianship of the state.
26
    After this revolution the administration of the state became
more and more lax, in consequence of the eager rivalry of
candidates for popular favour. During this period the moderate
party, as it happened, had no real chief, their leader being Cimon
son of Miltiades, who was a comparatively young man, and had been
late in entering public life; and at the same time the general
populace suffered great losses by war. The soldiers for active
service were selected at that time from the roll of citizens, and
as the generals were men of no military experience, who owed their
position solely to their family standing, it continually happened
that some two or three thousand of the troops perished on an
expedition; and in this way the best men alike of the lower and the
upper classes were exhausted. Consequently in most matters of
administration less heed was paid to the laws than had formerly
been the case. No alteration, however, was made in the method of
election of the nine Archons, except that five years after the
death of Ephialtes it was decided that the candidates to be
submitted to the lot for that office might be selected from the
Zeugitae as well as from the higher classes. The first Archon from
that class was Mnesitheides. Up to this time all the Archons had
been taken from the Pentacosiomedimni and Knights, while the
Zeugitae were confined to the ordinary magistracies, save where an
evasion of the law was overlooked. Four years later, in the
archonship of Lysicrates, thirty ‘local justices’, as they as they
were called, were re-established; and two years afterwards, in the
archonship of Antidotus, consequence of the great increase in the
number of citizens, it was resolved, on the motion of Pericles,
that no one should admitted to the franchise who was not of citizen
birth by both parents.
27
    After this Pericles came forward as popular leader, having first
distinguished himself while still a young man by prosecuting Cimon
on the audit of his official accounts as general. Under his
auspices the constitution became still more democratic. He took
away some of the privileges of the Areopagus, and, above all, he
turned the policy of the state in the direction of sea power, which
caused the masses to acquire confidence in themselves and
consequently to take the conduct of affairs more and more into
their own hands. Moreover, forty-eight years after the battle of
Salamis, in the archonship of Pythodorus, the Peloponnesian war
broke out, during which the populace was shut up in the city and
became accustomed to gain its livelihood by military service, and
so, partly voluntarily and partly involuntarily, determined to
assume the administration of the state itself. Pericles was also
the first to institute pay for service in the law-courts, as a bid
for popular favour to counterbalance the wealth of Cimon. The
latter, having private possessions on a regal scale, not only
performed the regular public services magnificently, but also
maintained a large number of his fellow-demesmen. Any member of the
deme of Laciadae could go every day to Cimon’s house and there
receive a reasonable provision; while his estate was guarded by no
fences, so that any one who liked might help himself to the fruit
from it. Pericles’ private property was quite unequal to this
magnificence and accordingly he took the advice of Damonides of Oia
(who was commonly supposed to be the person who prompted Pericles
in most of his measures, and was therefore subsequently
ostracized), which was that, as he was beaten in the matter of
private possessions, he should make gifts to the people from their
own property; and accordingly he instituted pay for the members of
the juries. Some critics accuse him of thereby causing a
deterioration in the character of the juries, since it was always
the common people who put themselves forward for selection as
jurors, rather than the men of better position. Moreover, bribery
came into existence after this, the first person to introduce it
being Anytus, after his command at Pylos. He was prosecuted by
certain individuals on account of his loss of Pylos, but escaped by
bribing the jury.
28
    So long, however, as Pericles was leader of the people, things
went tolerably well with the state; but when he was dead there was
a great change for the worse. Then for the first time did the
people choose a leader who was of no