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PERICLES (49o-429 B.C.)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 147 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PERICLES (49o-429 B.C.) , Athenian statesman, was See also:born about 490 B.C., the son of Xanthippus and Agariste. His See also:father'. took a prominent See also:part in Athenian politics, and in 479 held high command in the See also:Greek See also:squadron which annihilated the remnants of See also:Xerxes' See also:fleet at Mycale; through his See also:mother, the niece of See also:Cleisthenes, he was connected with the former tyrants of See also:Sicyon and the See also:family of the See also:Alcmaeonidae. His See also:early training was committed to the ablest and most advanced teachers of the See also:day: See also:Damon instructed him in See also:music, See also:Zeno the Eleatic revealed to him the See also:powers of See also:dialectic; the philosopher Anaxagoras, who lived in See also:close friendship with Pericles, had See also:great See also:influence on his See also:cast of thought and was commonly held responsible for that See also:calm and undaunted attitude of mind which he preserved in the midst of the severest trials. The first important recorded See also:act of Pericles falls in 463, when he helped to prosecute See also:Cimon on a See also:charge of See also:bribery, after the latter's Thasian See also:campaign; but as the See also:accusation could hardly have been meant seriously Pericles was perhaps put forward only as a See also:lay-figure. Undue prominence has commonly been assigned to him in the attack upon the See also:Areopagus in 462 or 461 (see AREOPAGUS, CIDMON). The Aristotelian Constitution of See also:Athens shows conclusively that Pericles was not the See also:leader of this campaign, for it expressly attributes the bulk of the reforms to Ephialtes (ch. 25), and mentions Ephialtes and See also:Archestratus as the authors of the See also:laws which the reactionaries of 404 sought to See also:repeal (ch. 35): moreover, it was Ephialtes,2 not Pericles, on whom the Conservatives took revenge as the author of their discomfiture. To Ephialtes likewise we must ascribe the renunciation of the Spartan See also:alliance and the new See also:league with See also:Argos and See also:Thessaly (461). Not See also:long after, however, when Ephialtes See also:fell by the See also:dagger, Pericles undoubtedly assumed the leading position in the See also:state. '. He must have been born before 485-484, in which years his father was ostracized.

On the other See also:

hand, See also:Plutarch describes him as veos c7v, i.e. not yet 30, in 463. 2 The later See also:eminence of Pericles has probably misled historians into exaggerating his influence at this See also:time. Even the Const. See also:Ath. (ch. 27) says that Pericles took " some " prerogatives from the Areopagus; this looks like a conjecture based on Arist. Pol. ii. 9 (12), 1273; Tiv Ev 'See also:APE 7r6 y , flovA',)v 'E uhXr7)S EK6X0lio€ Kai Hcpo<A s, a passage which really proves nothing. Plutarch, who is clearly blinded by Pericles' subsequent brilliance, makes him suddenly burst into prominence and hold the highest See also:place for 40 years (i.e. from ¢69) ; he degrades Ephialtes into a See also:tool of Pericles. The beginning of his ascendancy is marked by an unprecedented outward expansion of Athenian See also:power. In continuance of Cimon's policy, 200 See also:ships were sent to support the See also:Egyptian insurgents against See also:Persia (459),3 while detachments operated against See also:Cyprus and See also:Phoenicia. At the same time Athens embarked on several See also:wars in See also:Greece Proper.

An alliance with the Megarians, who were being hard pressed by their neighbours of See also:

Corinth, led to enmity with this latter power, and before long See also:Epidaurus and See also:Aegina were See also:drawn into the struggle. On See also:sea the Athenians, after two See also:minor engagements, gained a decisive victory which enabled them to See also:blockade Aegina. On See also:land their See also:general Myronides See also:beat off two Corinthian attacks on See also:Megara, which had been further secured by long walls drawn between the See also:capital and its See also:port Nisaea, nearly a mile distant. In 457 the Athenians and their See also:allies ventured to intercept a Spartan force which was returning See also:home from central Greece. At Tanagra in See also:Boeotia a pitched See also:battle was fought, in which both Pericles and the partisans of Cimon distinguished them-selves. The Spartans were successful but did not pursue their See also:advantage, and soon afterwards the Athenians, seizing their opportunity, sallied forth again, and, after a victory under Myronides at Oenophyta, obtained the submission of all Boeotia, See also:save See also:Thebes, and of See also:Phocis and Locris. In 455 Tolmides ravaged See also:Laconia and secured See also:Naupactus on the Corinthian gulf; in 4544 Pericles himself defeated the Sicyonians, and made a descent upon Oeniadae at the mouth of the gulf, and in 453 conducted a See also:cleruchy to the Thracian See also:Chersonese. These years See also:mark the See also:zenith of Athenian greatness. Yet the drain on the See also:country's strength was severe, and when See also:news arrived in 453 that the whole of the Egyptian armament, together with a reserve fleet, had been destroyed by the Persians, a reaction set in, and Cimon, who was recalled on Pericles' See also:motion (but see CIMON), was empowered to make See also:peace with See also:Sparta on the basis of the status quo. For a while the old See also:anti-See also:Persian policy again found favour in Athens, and Cimon led a great expedition against Cyprus; but on Cimon's See also:death hostilities were suspended, and a lasting arrangement with Persia was brought about.5 It was probably in See also:order to mark the definite conclusion of the Persian See also:War and to obtain recognition for Athens' See also:work in punish the Mede that Pericles now6 proposed a See also:pan-Hellenic See also:congress at Athens to consult about the rebuilding of the ruined temples and the policing of the seas; but owing to the refusal of Sparta the project fell through. Pericles may now have hoped to resume his aggressive policy in Greece Proper, but the events of the following years completely disillusioned him. In 447 an Athenian See also:army, which had marched into Boeotia to quell an insurrection, had to surrender in a See also:body at Coronea, and the See also:price of their See also:ransom was the evacuation of Boeotia.

Upon news of this disaster Phocis, Locris and See also:

Euboea revolted, and the Megarians massacred their Athenian See also:garrison, while a Spartan army penetrated into See also:Attica as far as See also:Eleusis. In this crisis Pericles induced the Spartan leaders to See also:retreat, apparently by means of a bribe, and hastened to re-conquer Euboea; but the other land possessions could not be recovered, and in a See also:thirty years' truce which was arranged in 445 Athens definitely renounced her predominance in Greece Proper. Pericles' See also:foreign policy henceforward underwent a profound See also:change—to consolidate the See also:naval supremacy, or to extend it by a cautious advance, remained his only ambition. 3 The See also:chronology of these years down to 449 is not quite certain. 4 An abortive expedition to reinstate a Thessalian See also:prince probably also belongs to this See also:year; there is also See also:evidence that Athens interfered in a war between See also:Selinus and See also:Segesta in See also:Sicily about this time. 5 The " peace of See also:Callias " is perhaps a fiction of the 4th See also:century orators. All the earlier evidence goes to show that only an informal understanding was arrived at, based on the de facto inability of either power to cripple the other (see Claims). ® 448 seems the most likely date. Before 46o Pericles' influence was as yet too small; 460–451 were years of war. After 445 Athens was hardly in a position to summon such a congress, and would not have sent to envoys out of 20 to See also:northern and central Greece, where she had just lost all her influence; nor is it likely that the See also:building of the See also:Parthenon (begun not later than 447) was entered on before the congress. While scouting the projects of the extreme Radicals for interfering in distant countries, he occasionally made a display of Athens' power abroad, as in his expedition to the See also:Black Sea,' and in the colonization of See also:Thurii,2 which marks the resumption of a Western policy. The peaceful development of Athenian power was interrupted by the revolt of See also:Samos in 440.

Pericles himself led out a fleet against the seceders and, after winning a first engagement, unwisely divided his armament and allowed one squadron to be routed. In a subsequent battle he retrieved this disaster, and after a long blockade reduced the See also:

town itself. A demand for help which the Samians sent to Sparta was rejected at the instance of the See also:Corinthians. Turning to Pericles' policy towards the members of the Delian League, we find that he frankly endeavoured to turn the allies into subjects (see DELIAN LEAGUE). A See also:special feature of his See also:rule was the sending out of numerous cleruchies (q.v.), which served the See also:double purpose of securing strategic points to Athens and converting the needy proletariate of the capital into owners of real See also:property. The land was acquired either by See also:confiscation from disaffected states or in See also:exchange for a lowering of See also:tribute. The See also:chief cleruchies of Pericles are: Thracian Chersonese (453—452), See also:Lemnos and See also:Imbros, See also:Andros, See also:Naxos and See also:Eretria (before 447) ; ' Brea in See also:Thrace (446); Oreus (445) ; Amisus and Astacus in the Black Sea (after 440); Aegina (431). In his home policy Pericles carried out more fully Ephialtes' project of making the Athenian See also:people truly self-governing. His chief innovation was the introduction of See also:payment from the public See also:treasury for state service. Chief of all, he provided a remuneration of 1 to 2 obols a day for the jurymen, probably in 451.4 Similarly he created a"theoricon" fund which enabled poor citizens to attend the dramatic representations of the See also:Dionysia. To him we may also attribute the 3 obols pay which the soldiers received during the Peloponnesian War in addition to the old-established See also:provision-See also:money. The archons and members of the See also:boule, who certainly received remuneration in 411, and also some minor magistrates, were perhaps paid for the first time by Pericles.

In connexion with this See also:

system of salaries should be mentioned a somewhat reactionary See also:law carried by Pericles in 451, by which an Athenian parentage on both sides was made an See also:express See also:condition of retaining the See also:franchise and with it the right of sitting on paid juries. The measure by which the archonship was opened to the third and they prosecuted him on a charge of See also:embezzlement, and imposed (practically) to the See also:fourth class of citizens (the Zeugitae and I a See also:fine of 50 talents. A revulsion of feeling soon led to his See also:rein-Thetes) may also be due to Pericles; the date is now known to be statement, apparently with extraordinary powers. But the 457 (Const. Ath. 26; and see See also:ARCHON). See also:plague, which had carried off two of his sons and a See also:sister, had The last years of his See also:life were troubled by a new See also:period of See also:left its mark also on Pericles himself. In the autumn of 429 he See also:storm and stress which called for his highest powers of calculation died° and was buried near the Academia, where See also:Pausanias (i5o and self-See also:control. A conflict between Corcyra and Corinth, the A.D.) saw his See also:tomb. A slightly idealized portrait of Pericles as slrategus is preserved to us in the See also:British Museum bust, No. 549, which is a See also:good copy of the well-known See also:bronze See also:original by See also:Cresilas. If we now endeavour to give a general estimate of Pericles' See also:character and achievements, it will be well to consider the many departments of his activity one by one. In his foreign policy Pericles differs from those statesmen of previous generations who sought above all the welfare of Greece as a whole.

His standpoint was at all times purely Athenian. Nor did he combine great statesmanlike qualities with exceptional ability in the See also:

field. We may clearly distinguish two periods in his See also:administration of foreign affairs. At first, joining to Cimon's anti-Persian ambitions and See also:Themistocles' schemes of Western expansion a new policy of aggression on the mainland, he endeavoured to push forward Athenian power in every direction, and engaged himself alike in Greece Proper, in the See also:Levant and in Sicily. After Cimon's death he renounced the war against Persia, and the collapse of 447—445 had the effect of completing his change 5 The general impression in Greece was that this See also:decree was the proximate cause of the war. Tne scurrilous motives which See also:Aristophanes suggests for this measure can be entirely disregarded. ° His dying boast, that " no Athenian had put on See also:mourning through his doing," perhaps refers to his forbearance towards his See also:political rivals, whom he refused to ruin by See also:prosecution. League, had become inevitable. In the following See also:spring he fastened a See also:quarrel upon Potidaea, a town in Chalcidice, which was attached by See also:ancient bonds to Corinth, and in the campaign which followed Athenian and Corinthian troops came to blows. A further casus See also:belli was provided by a decree forbidding the importation of Megarian goods into the Athenian See also:Empire,5 presumably in order to punish Megara for her alliance with Corinth (spring 432). The combined complaints of the injured parties led Sparta to summon a Peloponnesian congress which decided on war against Athens, failing a concession to Megara and Corinth (autumn 432). In this crisis Pericles persuaded the wavering See also:assembly that See also:compromise was useless, because Sparta was resolved to precipitate a war in any See also:case.

A further See also:

embassy calling upon the Athenians to expel the accursed family of the Alcmaeonidae, clearly aimed at Pericles himself as its chief representative, was left unheeded, and early in 431 hostilities began between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies (see PELOPONNESIAN WAR). At the same time, Pericles was being sorely hampered by his adversaries at home. The orthodox Conservatives and some democrats who were jealous of his influence, while afraid to See also:beard the great statesman himself, combined to assail his nearest See also:friends. The sculptor See also:Pheidias (q.v.) was prosecuted on two vexatious charges (probably in 433), and before he could disprove the second he died under See also:arrest. Anaxagoras was threatened with a law against atheists, and See also:felt compelled to leave Athens. A scandalous charge against his See also:mistress See also:Aspasia, which he defeated by his See also:personal intercession before the See also:court, was taken very much to See also:heart by Pericles. His position at home scarcely improved during the war. His policy of abandoning the land See also:defence was unpopular with the land-owning See also:section of the people, who from the walls of Athens could see their own property destroyed by the invaders. At the end of the first year of war (early in 430) Pericles made a great See also:appeal to the See also:pride of his countrymen in his well-known funeral speech. But in the ensuing summer, after a terrible outbreak of plague had ravaged the crowded See also:city, the people became thoroughly demoralized. Pericles led a large squadron to harry the coasts of the Peloponnese, but met with little success. On his return the Athenians sued for peace, though without success, and a speech by Pericles had little effect on their See also:spirits.

See also:

Late in 430 they deposed him from his magistracy. In addition to this second and third naval powers of Greece, led to the simultaneous See also:appearance in Athens of an embassy from either combatant (433)• Pericles had, as it seems, resumed of late a See also:plan of Western expansion by forming alliances with Rhegium and See also:Leontini, and the favourable position of Corcyra on the See also:trade-route to Sicily and See also:Italy, as well as its powerful fleet, no doubt helped to induce him to secure an alliance with that See also:island, and so to commit an unfriendly act towards a leading representative of the Peloponnesian League. Pericles now seemed to have made up his mind that war with Sparta, the See also:head of that ' The date can hardly be fixed ; probably it was after 440. 2 It has been doubted whether Pericles favoured this enterprise, but among its chief promoters were two of his friends, Lampon the soothsayer and See also:Hippodamus the architect. The oligarch See also:Cratinus (in a frag. of the 4')ybbes) violently attacks the whole project. ' These See also:dates are suggested by the decrease of tribute which the See also:inscriptions prove for this year. 4 This is the date given by the Const. Ath., which also mentions a SLa'y'70topth TAN SLKCWTAN] (See also:Blass' restoration) in f rag. c. 18. The confused See also:story of See also:Philochorus and Plutarch, by which 4760 citizens were disfranchised or even sold into See also:slavery in 445, when an Egyptian prince sent a largess of See also:corn, may refer to a subsequent application of Pericles' law, though probably on a much milder See also:scale than is here represented. of attitude. Henceforward he repressed all projects of reckless enterprise, and confined himself to the See also:gradual expansion and consolidation of the empire.

It is not quite easy to see why he abandoned this successful policy in order to hasten on a war with Sparta, and neither the Corcyrean alliance nor the Megarian decree seems justified by the facts as known to us, though commercial motives may have played a part which we cannot now See also:

gauge. In his See also:adoption of a purely defensive policy at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, he miscalculated the See also:temper of the Athenians, whose morale would have been better sustained by a greater show of activity. But in the See also:main his policy in 431–429 was See also:sound, and the disasters of the war cannot fairly be laid to his charge. The See also:foundation of cleruchies was an admirable See also:device, which in many ways anticipated the colonial system of the See also:Romans. In his attitude towards the members of the Delian League Pericles likewise maintained a purely Athenian point of view. But he could hardly be said seriously to have oppressed the subject cities, and technically all the League money was spent on League business, for See also:Athena, to whom the chief monuments in Athens were reared, was the See also:patron goddess of the League. Under Pericles Athens also attained her greatest measure of commercial prosperity, and the activity of her traders all over the Levant, the Black Sea and the See also:West, is attested not only by See also:literary authority, but also by numerous See also:Attic coins, vases, &c. Pericles' home policy has been much debated since ancient times. His chief enactments relate to the payment of citizens for State service. These See also:measures have been interpreted as an appeal to the baser instincts of the See also:mob, but this See also:assumption is entirely out of keeping with all we know of Pericles' general attitude towards the people, over whom See also:Thucydides says he practically ruled as a See also:king. We must, then, admit that Pericles sincerely contemplated the good of his See also:fellow-countrymen, and we may believe that he endeavoured to realize that ideal Athens which Thucydides sketches in the Funeral Speech—an Athens where See also:free and intelligent obedience is rendered to an equitable See also:code of laws, where merit finds its way to the front, where military efficiency is found along with a free development in other directions and strangles neither See also:commerce nor See also:art. In accordance with this See also:scheme Pericles sought to educate the whole community to political See also:wisdom by giving to all an active See also:share in the See also:government, and to See also:train their aesthetic tastes by making accessible the best See also:drama and music.

It was most unfortunate that the Peloponnesian War ruined this great project by diverting the large supplies of money which were essential to it, and confronting the remodelled Athenian See also:

democracy, before it could dispense with his tutelage, with a See also:series of intricate questions of foreign policy which, in view of its in-experience, it could hardly have been expected to grapple with successfully. Pericles also incurred unpopularity because of his See also:rationalism in religious matters; yet Athens in his time was becoming ripe for the new culture, and would have done better to receive it from men of his circle—Anaxagoras, Zeno, See also:Protagoras and Meton —than from the more irresponsible See also:sophists. The influence of Aspasia on Athenian thought, though denounced unsparingly by most critics. may indeed have been beneficial, inasmuch as it tended towards the emancipation of the Attic woman from the over-strict tutelage in which she was kept. As a patron of art Pericles was a still greater force. His policy in encouraging the drama has already been mentioned: among his friends he could See also:count three of the greatest Greek writers—the poet See also:Sophocles and the historians See also:Herodotus and Thucydides. Pericles likewise is responsible for the See also:epoch-making splendour of Attic art in his time, for had he not so fully appreciated and given such free See also:scope to the See also:genius of Pheidias, Athens would hardly have witnessed the raising of the Parthenon and other glorious structures, and Attic art could not have boasted a See also:legion of first-See also:rate sculptors of whom See also:Alcamenes, See also:Agoracritus and See also:Paeonius are only the chief names. (See also GREEK ART.) Of Pericles' personal characteristics we have a peculiarly full147 and interesting See also:record. He was commonly compared to Olympian See also:Zeus, partly because of his serene and dignified bearing, partly by See also:reason of the majestic See also:roll of the thundering eloquence, with its bold poetical imagery, with which he held friend and foe spellbound. The same dignity appeared in the See also:grave beauty of his features, though the abnormal height of his cranium afforded an opportunity for ridicule of which the comedians made full use. In spite of an unusually large See also:crop of scandals about him we cannot but believe that he See also:bore an See also:honourable character, and his integrity is vouched for by Thucydides in such strong terms as to exclude all further doubt on the question.

End of Article: PERICLES (49o-429 B.C.)

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