Who was Pericles?
Pericles was an Athenian statesman and general who led Athens from the 460s BC until his death in 429 BC. Elected general almost every year, he pushed its democracy further, spent the empire's money on new temples on the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, and set Athens' defensive plan for the Peloponnesian War against Sparta.1
His record in the field is short. He defeated the Sicyonians in the Corinthian Gulf in 454 or 453 BC, settled and walled off the Thracian Chersonese, beat the Samian fleet off the island of Tragia in 440 BC and took Samos after a siege of eight or nine months. The war he planned against Sparta is told in Sparta vs Athens.2
Early life: the son of Xanthippus
Pericles was born in Athens in the 490s BC; no ancient writer gives the year, and the historian Evelyn Abbott put it at about 493. His father Xanthippus was ostracized, allowed back when Xerxes invaded, and led the Athenians at Mycale in 479. His mother Agariste belonged to the Alcmaeonid family of the reformer Cleisthenes. Herodotus and Plutarch tell that shortly before the birth she dreamed she bore a lion.3
Plutarch says his head was long and out of proportion, so sculptors nearly always showed him in a helmet, and comic poets called him “squill-head.” His teachers were the music theorist Damon, the philosopher Zeno and, above all, Anaxagoras, whose influence, Abbott writes, raised him above the superstitions of his time.4
How did Pericles rise to power?
Pericles rose as the younger partner of Ephialtes, the democratic leader who stripped the old Council of the Areopagus of most of its powers. As a young man he prosecuted the general Cimon and lost. After Ephialtes was murdered and Cimon ostracized, Pericles led the popular side and introduced pay for jurors.6
Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians dates to 451/0 BC a law, proposed by Pericles, that limited citizenship to people with citizen parents on both sides. In the 450s the treasury of the Delian League, the alliance against Persia, was moved from Delos to Athens, and Pericles spent allied money on temples on the Acropolis, beginning with the Parthenon. Bury argued that allied money paid only a small part of the cost.7
Conservatives led by Thucydides, son of Melesias (not the historian), attacked the building program. In Plutarch's account Pericles replied that Athens owed the allies no account of the money as long as it fought for them and kept the Persians away. When Thucydides was ostracized, Pericles had no serious rival left, and Plutarch says he was then elected general for fifteen years without a break.8
He had two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, by his wife. Later he lived with Aspasia of Miletus, whom the comic poets attacked and who bore him a son, also named Pericles.10
What was Pericles famous for?
Pericles is famous for leading Athens at the height of its power. He made its democracy more radical, oversaw the building of the Parthenon, held together Athens' sea empire and planned its defensive strategy against Sparta. The funeral speech that Thucydides gives him praises Athens as a free city governed in the interest of the many.11
Thucydides saw his strength in rank, ability and known integrity. Because he had never sought power by improper means, Pericles could lead the people instead of being led, deflate them when they grew overconfident and restore their confidence when they panicked. In short, Thucydides wrote, Athens was in name a democracy but in fact ruled by its first citizen.12
The ancients called him “the Olympian.” Plutarch reports that some explained the name by his oratory, others by his buildings or his statesmanship, and he thought it suited best a gentle nature and a clean use of power. Plutarch also says Pericles seldom appeared in public, keeping himself, like the state galley, for great occasions.13
What were Pericles' greatest victories?
Pericles won few pitched battles, and Plutarch says he was famous above all for caution. His best-known successes were a victory over the Sicyonians in the Corinthian Gulf, the settlement and walling of the Thracian Chersonese, the end of the crisis of 446 BC without a battle, and the subjugation of Samos after its revolt in 440 BC.14
In 454 or 453 BC he led a seaborne raid into the Corinthian Gulf, beat the Sicyonians and failed to take Oeniadae. In the Thracian Chersonese, the Gallipoli peninsula, he settled a thousand Athenian colonists and built a wall across the isthmus against raiding Thracians. Later he sailed with a fleet into the Black Sea, a voyage Kagan dates to 437 BC and calls little more than showing the flag.15
The crisis of 446. When Boeotia was lost, Euboea and Megara revolted and a Peloponnesian army under the Spartan king Pleistoanax invaded Attica. Instead of fighting, Pericles got the invaders to withdraw; Plutarch says he bribed the king's adviser Cleandridas. He then reconquered Euboea. In the Thirty Years' Peace that followed, Athens gave up Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen and Achaea.16
Plutarch and Bury credit Pericles with a further long wall, built parallel to the northern one, so that the city and its harbor at Piraeus formed a single fortress. Kagan describes the Long Walls as turning Athens, in effect, into an island.17
Samos. When Samos, one of the strongest allies, went to war with Miletus and then revolted, Pericles sailed against it. Off the island of Tragia he beat seventy Samian ships with forty-four, by the count of Thucydides and Plutarch, then besieged the city. It surrendered after eight months by Plutarch's count, nine by Thucydides', and had to pull down its walls, give up its ships and pay for the war.19
What was Pericles' war strategy?
Pericles planned to refuse battle on land against the stronger Peloponnesian army. The people of Attica would move inside the walls, Athens would rely on its fleet, and ships would raid the enemy coast. He told the Athenians to look after their navy and attempt no new conquests during the war.20
The war came after Sparta demanded, among other things, that Athens revoke the decree that shut the Megarians out of its harbors and market. Pericles argued that giving way would only invite new demands, and the assembly refused. Plutarch reports both explanations of his stand: a clear view of the city's interest, or arrogance and love of strife.21
When the Spartan king Archidamus, his friend, invaded Attica in 431 BC, Pericles told the assembly that if the enemy spared his estates he would give them to the city. He kept the citizens from marching out, and Athens sent a hundred ships around the Peloponnese. Trees, he said in Plutarch's version, grow back quickly when cut, but men once lost are not easily replaced.22
That winter Pericles spoke at the public funeral for the first year's dead. In the speech Thucydides gives him, Athens is a democracy governed for the many rather than the few, and its constitution is “a pattern to others” rather than a copy of its neighbors' laws.23
How did Pericles die?
Pericles died of the plague in the late summer or fall of 429 BC, two and a half years after the Peloponnesian War began. The epidemic had broken out in crowded Athens in 430. It killed both his legitimate sons, and Plutarch says it took Pericles himself slowly, wearing down his body in a long illness.25
When the plague struck in 430, after the second Peloponnesian invasion, Thucydides caught it himself and described it in detail. The Athenians blamed Pericles, removed him from command and fined him: fifteen or fifty talents according to the sources Plutarch used, fifty according to Abbott. Not long afterward, Thucydides writes, “according to the way of the multitude,” they elected him general again.26
Both his legitimate sons, Xanthippus and Paralus, died in the plague. Plutarch says Pericles had not wept at any funeral until that of Paralus, when he broke down as he laid the wreath. The Athenians then allowed his son by Aspasia to be enrolled as a citizen, setting aside for him his own citizenship law.27
As he lay dying, Plutarch writes, his friends counted up his victories, nine trophies set up as general, and Pericles said they had forgotten his greatest claim: that no living Athenian had ever put on mourning because of him.28
Legacy
Thucydides judged that Athens lost the war because Pericles' successors, competing with one another for leadership, abandoned his plan. Donald Kagan argued instead that the strategy had already failed when Pericles died, with the treasury running dry and the Peloponnesians undeterred, and that Athens recovered only when his successors fought more aggressively.29
The years of his leadership, when the Parthenon rose on the Acropolis, are often called the golden age of Athens.30 › Sparta vs Athens
Explore the other great commanders of ancient Greece, or see how Athens beat Persia at Marathon and Salamis a generation before Pericles.
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- Aristotle, “The Athenian Constitution”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 15”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 18”; Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”; Diodorus Siculus, “Library of History, Book XII”. ↩
- Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; Aristotle, “The Athenian Constitution”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Donald Kagan, “Lecture 15”; Aristotle, “The Athenian Constitution”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”. ↩
- Aristotle, “The Athenian Constitution”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 17”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 18”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 15”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Thucydides, “Thucydides, Translated into English, vol. 1”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 19”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Diodorus Siculus, “Library of History, Book XII”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 19”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 19”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Thucydides, “Thucydides, Translated into English, vol. 1”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Thucydides, “Thucydides, Translated into English, vol. 1”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great”; Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Plutarch, “Life of Pericles”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
- Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”; Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”. ↩
- Donald Kagan, “Lecture 20”; Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens”. ↩
Sources
- Aristotle, translated by H. Rackham (Loeb), Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, “The Athenian Constitution”, chapters 22 to 28
- Donald Kagan, Open Yale Courses, CLCV 205, “Lecture 15: Athenian Democracy”
- Plutarch, Loeb translation by Bernadotte Perrin, on LacusCurtius, “Life of Pericles”
- Donald Kagan, Open Yale Courses, CLCV 205, “Lecture 18: The Peloponnesian War, Part I (cont.)”
- Thucydides, translated by Richard Crawley, Project Gutenberg, “The History of the Peloponnesian War”
- Donald Kagan, Open Yale Courses, CLCV 205, “Lecture 20: The Peloponnesian War, Part II (cont.)”
- Evelyn Abbott, “Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens” (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1891), read at the Internet Archive
- J. B. Bury, “A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great” (Macmillan, London, 1900; 1906 reprint), read at the Internet Archive
- Diodorus Siculus, translated by C. H. Oldfather (Loeb), on LacusCurtius, “Library of History, Book XII”
- Donald Kagan, Open Yale Courses, CLCV 205, “Lecture 17: The Peloponnesian War, Part I”
- Thucydides, translated by Benjamin Jowett, “Thucydides, Translated into English, vol. 1” (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1881), read at the Internet Archive
- Donald Kagan, Open Yale Courses, CLCV 205, “Lecture 19: The Peloponnesian War, Part II”
