PERICLES
By. Compton Mackenzie
It was Pericles who established Athens as the material, intellectual and spiritual leader of all Hellas. But more than this it was he who planted within her walls, and so carefully nurtured the seeds of a democracy the equal of which Mr. Mackenzie considers cannot be found in any constitution with which we are familiar. This book (Hodder and Stoughton, 18s.) in view of the present threat to democratic principles is of special significance. A certain similarity in fact may be drawn between the differing ideologies of democratic Athens and military Sparta and the present-day democratic and totalitarian States. Although the democracy of Athens, in which " office-holding of some kind or other was the normal condition of every Athenian citizen," in which the position of President.
being held for but twenty-four hours, also passed to almost every citizen and in which the city's code of laws_came up each year for amendment by public vote, might not be suitable for applica- tion to present times, yet we cannot afford in these days to forget it. Mr. Mackenzie has portrayed the character of Pericles and the life in Athens in the fifth century B.C. with the careful re- search of an historian and wit and imagination of a novelist. His book should prove fascinating m the general reader.
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