Their military service was converted to cash payments, which came to be treated as a tribute. Pericles said that they do not happen the right to ask, what is it effective as long as they were protected by the Persians. Much of this was so in the adornment of Athens with these beautiful works of art, who brought some of the finest relics now cultivated in many fine museums, and the religious parties, who rejoiced with her poetic and dramatic accompaniments, the heart and cultured taste between rich and poor. But the Athenians had the time of Pericles, not an empty chair. He did not sit at home relaxing and the battles are done by mercenaries, he later let. If a soldier or oarsman, he made it to work on a holiday to serve in the service of his city to do, he uses his body to them as it were, was the body of the other.

Pericles was an able general, but most was a speaker. In fact it was with him that oratory is a political power in Athens was the first order. In this as in many other areas, the system contains the seeds of disaster Pericles, noble as it worked in the hands of his Creator. The implementation of the dignity of his character and wisdom, and is known as honest, he gave people a free hand, and was the real leader, instead of them. After all, not as a seeker of favors unworthy sources, he did not speak that, together with a view to the advantage, but had enough sense of dignity sometimes in contradiction with the people, even braving their anger, so it was nominally a democracy, but in reality a government of the most respected citizens. After his death the most important statesmen were more on a level, and in their struggle for priority was to woo the people to sacrifice to the object even important state interests.

In the beginning of his career, Pericles, a decree to all the states of Greece, a congress with a view to creating a federal union hold purchased. He was the first Greek who nurtured and cared for this claim. He found no encouragement, hope Pericles, no doubt, that an extension of the Athenian empire to achieve the same purpose in another way to have. He appeared on the Peloponnesian war, until the end of 25 years after his death in the ruins of Athens, with cheerful confidence. The tomb talked about those who fell in the beginning of the struggle that he be assigned by Thucydides, is a striking and noble image of the Athenian culture at its best. His death in the third year of the war was an irreparable loss to Athens and to Greece.