Pericles

Pericles was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during its golden age. He turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. He is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy. He died in 474 BC, and is buried in the Acropolis, near the Parthenon.

About Pericles in brief

Pericles was a prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during its golden age. He turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles promoted the arts and literature, and it is principally through his efforts that Athens acquired the reputation of being the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world. He is considered to have been the first politician to attribute importance to philosophy. He, along with several members of his family, succumbed to the Plague of Athens in 429 BC, which weakened the city-state during a protracted conflict with Sparta. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus, who, though ostracized in 485–484 BC, returned to Athens to command the Athenian contingent in the Greek victory at Mycale just five years later. According to Herodotus and Plutarch, Agariste dreamed, a few nights before Pericles’ birth, that she had borne a lion. Legends say that Philip II of Macedon had a similar dream before the birth of his son, Alexander the Great. One interpretation of the dream treats the lion as a traditional symbol of greatness, but the story may also allude to the unusually large size of Pericles’ skull, which became a popular target of contemporary comedians. Although Plutarchs claims that this deformity was the reason that Pericles was always depicted wearing a helmet, this is not the case; the helmet was actually the symbol of his official rank as strategos.

Pericles belonged to the tribe of Acamantis. His early years were quiet; the introverted young Pericles avoided public appearances, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies. He learned music from the masters of the time and he is thought to have had a close friendship with philosopher Anaxagoras. In the spring of 472 BC, The Persians presented Pericles with the Greater Dionysia as a liturgy, demonstrating that he was one of the wealthier men of Athens. His proverbial calmness and self-control are also often regarded as products of Anaxasagoras’ influence. His thought and rhetorical emphasis on the manner of trouble, and emphasis on emotional calm, may have possibly been in part in the face of skepticism about divine phenomena. He presented the Persians of Achyluschus at Salamis, presenting them with the famous picture of Themistocles’ famous victory against his political opponent Cimonacos, whose faction succeeded in having him ostracised shortly afterwards. In 472BC, Pericles presented The Persian of AChylus to his political rival Cimon Cimon, who succeeded him in winning the battle of Salamis. He died in 474 BC, and is buried in the Acropolis, near the Parthenon. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429BC, is sometimes known as the “Age of Pericle’s”.

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