Lesson 3: Pericles and the Athenian Empire
Pericles
Pericles was born around 490 BC.
He was a member of the tribe Acamantis. His father was one Xanthippus, an Athenian general who had been in command at the battle of Mycale at the end of the Persian Wars. His mother, Agariste, was a niece of the great Cleisthenes, the man who had first established the democratic system in Athens.
Plutarch tells us that, with the exception of a disproportionately long head, Pericles had ‘near-perfect’ physical features.
There is another interesting story about Pericles that we know of from Plutarch. Once, it is said that he had been ‘abused and reviled’ for a whole day by an ‘idle hooligan’ while attending to his own affairs in the Athenian Agora. Even as he was returning home, his abuser continued to follow him and insult him. When, eventually, he had reached his own home, Pericles supposedly instructed one of his own slaves, it now being dark, to light a torch and escort the hooligan home.
(Stories from Plutarch should not be taken at face value, as he lived several centuries after the events that he was writing about. Nevertheless, it is an indication of the measure of admiration with which Pericles was regarded by the ancients)
In his youth, Pericles became associated with the philosopher Anaxagoras. It was mainly because of this association that Pericles, unlike most of his contemporaries, developed a non-superstitious mindset.
Pheidias, the great sculptor who created the famous gold and chryselephantine statue of Athena that was eventually to be housed in the Parthenon, was also closely associated with Pericles.
From the beginning of his career, Pericles became associated with the ‘democratic’ party in the Athenian Assembly.
The leader of the ‘democratic’ party in the first half of the fifth century was one Ephialtes.
Ephialtes was most famous for his successful reform of the Athenian political system, which stripped the old aristocratic governing council, the Areopagus, of most of its authority and left power in the hands of the people’s Assembly, the Ekklesia.
Ephialtes was assassinated for his pains in 462 BC.
After the death of Ephialtes, it was Pericles who became the leader of the ‘democratic’ party.
His main political opponents were the stalwarts of the ‘aristocratic’ party – first, Cimon the son of Miltiades, and later Thucydides the son of Melesias (not to be confused with Thucydides the historian!)
The achievement for which Pericles is most well-known is the construction of most of the buildings on the Athenian Acropolis, including the Parthenon. These projects were financed by money from the tribute payments made by the member states of the Delian League.
Pericles was also responsible for the construction of the Odeon.
