Massive enterprises must have major incentives. Somebody has to show everybody—or almost everybody—that sacrifices made now will bear fruit later. And the ones Pericles had in mind were not to the gods, as in earlier times,17 but for a city that had become a state that was becoming an empire. Which had to remain, nonetheless, a community. If Athens

More concretely disturbing was the concurrent deterioration of the political and ethical situation in Athens to the point of crisis—the democracy turning fickle and corrupt, the consequent takeover by a ruthless oligarchy, the Athenian leadership of Greece becoming tyrannical, wars begun in arrogance ending in disaster.

It was during his childhood that the Persians had twice been driven back, against all the odds, thanks, he now realized, largely to the moral and political leadership provided by the Athenians.