Sean Corrigan introduces his article In Default of Sanity by quoting Plutarch, Pericles, Ch 9‐14:
In the beginning… he tried to ingratiate himself with the people. And since he was the inferior in wealth and property… Pericles… had recourse to the distribution of the peopleʹs own wealth. …And soon, what with festival‐grants and jurorsʹ wages and other fees and largesses, he bribed the multitude by the wholesale…. and made his policy one of pleasing [it]… But that which brought most delightful adornment to Athens … [was] his construction of sacred edifices… “it is but meet that the city….should apply her abundance to such works as… will bring that abundance into actual service, in that all sorts of activity and diversified demands arise, which rouse every art and stir every hand, and bring, as it were, the whole city under pay, so that she not only adorns, but supports herself as well from her own resources.” And it was true that his military expeditions supplied those who were in the full vigour of manhood with abundant resources from the common funds, and in his desire that the unwarlike throng of common labourers should neither have no share at all in the public receipts, nor yet get fees for laziness and idleness, he boldly suggested to the people projects for great constructions, and designs for works which would call many arts into play and involve long periods of time, in order that the stay‐at‐homes, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels and soldiers, might have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public wealth.
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