History of the Peloponnesian War

This pollution, therefore, the Lacedaemonians required them to purge their city of, principally, forsooth, as taking part with the gods, but knowing withal that Pericles the son of 127antippus was by the mother's side one of that race. For they thought if Pericles were banished, the Athenians would the more easily be brought to yield to their desire.

Nevertheless, they hoped not so much that he should be banished as to bring him into the envy of the city, as if the misfortune of him were in part the cause of the war.

For being the most powerful of his time and having the sway of the state, he was in all things opposite to the Lacedaemonians, not suffering the Athenians to give them the least way but inciting them to the war.