sought for the expansion and stabilisation of all democratic institutions. Accordingly, he enacted legislation granting the lower classes access to the political system and the public offices, from which they had previously been barred.

According to Samons, Pericles believed that it was necessary to raise the demos, in which he saw an untapped source of Athenian power and the crucial element of Athenian military dominance. (The fleet, backbone of Athenian power since the days of Themistocles, was manned almost