Perickes Supported the Arts and Intellectual Thinking by Encouraging Bards and
Pericles (l. 495–429 BCE) was a prominent Greek statesman, orator, and general during the Golden Age of Athens. The period in which he led Athens, in fact, has been chosen the Age of Pericles due to his influence, not simply on his city's fortunes, but on the whole of Greek history during the 5th century BCE and even afterwards his death.
He was a violent proponent of democracy, although the class this took differed from the modern solar day as just male citizens of Athens could participate in politics. Even so, his reforms would lay the groundwork for the evolution of subsequently autonomous political systems.
Pericles' name means "surrounded by glory" and he would live up to his proper noun through his efforts to brand Athens the greatest of the Greek city-states. His influence on Athenian guild, politics, and culture was so great that the historian Thucydides (l. 460/455 - 399/398 BCE), his gimmicky and gentleman, called him "the get-go citizen of Athens" (History, Ii.65).
Pericles promoted the arts, literature, & philosophy & gave free reign to some of the most inspired writers, artists, & thinkers of his time.
Pericles promoted the arts, literature, and philosophy and gave costless rein to some of the well-nigh inspired writers, artists, and thinkers of his time. Co-ordinate to his contemporaries and afterwards writers, he was encouraged and directed in this, as well as in other aspects of his career, past his consort Aspasia of Miletus (fifty. c. 470-410/400 BCE) who seeems to accept served as the muse to many famous Athenians of the time.
The caste of influence Aspasia had over Pericles continues to be debated but his accomplishments are well-established. Pericles increased Athens' power through his apply of the Delian League to form the Athenian empire and led his urban center through the First Peloponnesian War (460-446 BCE) and the first 2 years of the Second Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). He was still actively engaged in political life when he died during The Plague at Athens, 430-427 BCE, in 429 BCE.
Early Life & Rising to Power
Pericles was born in Athens, in 495 BCE, to an aristocratic family. His father, Xanthippus (fifty. c. 525-475 BCE) was a respected pol and state of war hero and his mother, Agariste, a member of the powerful and influential Alcmaeonidae family who encouraged the early development of Athenian democracy.
Pericles' family unit'south nobility, prestige, and wealth allowed him to pursue his inclination toward education in any subject he fancied. He read widely, showing an especial interest in philosophy, and is recognized as the first Athenian pol to aspect importance to philosophy as a applied discipline which could assistance guide and direct one's idea and actions rather than a mere speculative past-time or the trade of the Sophists.
Athens Acropolis
Pericles' early years were quiet and the introverted boyfriend took to avoiding public appearances and speeches, instead preferring to devote his time to his studies. Subsequently in life, this initial shyness would encourage the claims of his detractors that his consort Aspasia of Miletus taught him how to speak and wrote his speeches for him because, they said, there was no evidence of him learning oratory in his youth. It was a grave insult to a homo of Athens, especially a statesman, to claim a woman was responsible for his successful career and Pericles' political enemies would focus on this accuse repeatedly.
Pericles was involved in politics already in the early 460'southward BCE but precisely when is unknown. He prosecuted a case against his political rival Cimon (l. c. 510 - 450 BCE) in 463 BCE charging the latter with corruption in his dealings with Macedon. Cimon, son of Miltiades (the hero of Marathon, fifty. c. 555 - 489 BCE), was acquitted but this may have been due more to his political connections and influence than any declining on Pericles' part to prosecute the case.
Cimon was the leader of the conservative party and an able war machine commander who had fought at Salamis in 480 BCE when the Greeks defeated the Persians. During the Persian invasion of 480 BCE, Athens had rallied the other city-states to defense and, later, assumed a dominant position. The Delian League, a confederation of the city-states, was formed in 478 BCE to provide defense confronting farther Persian aggression and Cimon was instrumental in persuading diverse city-states to join.
Years before Pericles entered politics, Cimon was already influential and had done a nifty deal of adept for the people of Athens and the other city-states. Humans are fickle, however, and Cimon's achievements – though they may have helped him in the case of 463 BCE – would not exercise so a 2nd time.
Greek Warships
The conservative party supported the aristocratic political associates of the areopagus while the autonomous faction in Athens encouraged reforms in the pop assembly known as ekklesia. The leader of the autonomous party was Ephialtes (5th century BCE) who was Pericles' mentor. Cimon had served as a diplomat between Athens and Sparta a number of times since 478 BCE and, in 465 BCE, led the Athenian contingent of 4,000 soldiers to aid Sparta in putting downwardly a rebellion by helots. Sparta insulted Athens by dismissing this sizeable force while welcoming the aid of other metropolis-states. Athens responded by breaking their diplomatic ties with Sparta.
The reason for Sparta's dismissal of the Athenian force is unknown but it has been suggested that Sparta did not trust Athens to remain loyal and feared they would switch sides during the conflict. Early on accounts simply state that the Spartans did not like the look of Cimon's soldiers.
Whatever the reason was, in 461 BCE Pericles again charged Cimon with corruption – this time by challenge he was aiding Spartan interests – and succeeded in having his rival ostracized from the metropolis for ten years. Shortly afterward in the same year, Ephialtes was assassinated; these two events marking the outset of Pericles' ascent to power.
During the Age of Pericles, Athens blossomed as a center of teaching, fine art, civilization, & democracy.
The First Peloponnesian War
The Delian League had existed for almost 20 years at this time and had increasingly become more of an extension of Athenian power and politics than a Greek confederacy for mutual defense force. City-states preferred to simply pay Athens to defend them rather than send troops and supplies for the common cause and this penchant – which Athens welcomed - fabricated the city rich and powerful.
Historian Edith Hamilton elaborates:
Back in 480, after the terminal defeat of the Persians, the Athenians had been chosen to lead the new confederacy of free Greek states. It was a lofty post and they were proud to concord it, but the role demanded a high degree of equity. Athens could be the leader of the free only if she considered the welfare of others on the same level with her ain. During the war with Persia she had been able to do that…As head of the league, too, for a time she had not let her power corrupt her. Just only for a short time. The temptation to acquire nonetheless more than power proved as always irresistible. Very soon the free confederacy was beingness turned into the Athenian Empire. (117)
The First Peloponnesian War was fought between Athens and Sparta for supremacy although the bodily disharmonize would primarily involve Athens and Corinth, an marry of Sparta. Greece was non a united land at this time just a confederacy of city-states spring together through "shared blood, shared language, shared organized religion, and shared customs" (Herodotus as cited in Boardman, 127). Certain urban center-states would align themselves with either Athens or Sparta, the 2 most powerful, depending on self-interest and this created the web of alliances which would form the opposing sides of the war.
Delian League
Sparta feared that Athens' growing power was a threat but could not hope to defeat the Athenian navy which had only become larger and more effective since the victory at Salamis in 480 BCE. Corinth, notwithstanding, had a armada and so did another marry, Aegina, which the Spartan coalition made use of. Although these alliances – as well as the helot revolt and the Spartan insult to Athens - are ordinarily cited as the source of the conflict, Edith Hamilton expands on these claims:
The real cause of the war was not this or that trivial disturbance, the revolt of a afar colony, the breaking of an unimportant treaty, or the like. It was something far beneath the surface, deep down in man nature, and the cause of all the wars always fought. The motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession which no ability and no possession satisfy. Power, or its equivalent wealth, created the desire for more power, more wealth. The Athenians and the Spartans fought for one reason only – considering they were powerful and therefore were compelled to seek more ability. (114)
Pericles, as commander-in-chief, led the Athenian forces in a number of battles but neither side could gain a pregnant advantage. A truce was finally agreed to, orchestrated past Cimon, who returned from his exile in 451 BCE and served as intermediary on Pericles' behalf. The truce allowed Pericles to focus his attention on other areas. He issued his and then-called Congress Decree in 449 BCE inviting all the urban center-states to gather for talks on a unified country only when Sparta refused to attend, the initiative stalled. Hostilities were non resumed, still, and the Outset Peloponnesian War concluded with a treaty which established limits to the reach of both Athens and Sparta.
Aspasia & the Funeral Oration
Throughout the war, Pericles was engaged in various cultural initiatives in Athens which brought him into regular contact with the leading intellectuals of the city. Among these was the strange-born writer and teacher Aspasia of Miletus and, in 445 BCE, he divorced his wife (name unknown) and began (or continued) a romantic relationship with Aspasia. Aspasia's talent as a author, and close association with Pericles, encouraged his enemies to claim she was the writer of his greatest speeches but it seems articulate he had a gift for oratory from a young age, long earlier he met her, as evidenced in speeches such as the one which exiled Cimon.
Pericles' funeral Oration highlights how Athenian democracy encourages personal freedom & sets the city apart from the rest.
The almost famous of these speeches is his Funeral Oration, given at the conclusion of the Get-go Peloponnesian State of war. In this work, Pericles praises the soldiers who fell in battle, the bravery of their Athenian ancestors, the families who sacrificed loved ones for the urban center, and encourages survivors to honor the memory of the fallen. His primary focus, however, is the glory of Athens and how unique it is among all the other cities of the world. The spoken communication, recorded past Thucydides, highlights how Athenian democracy encourages personal liberty and sets the city apart from the rest equally an example to all:
Our constitution does non copy the laws of neighboring states; nosotros are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its assistants favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a commonwealth. If we expect to the laws, they beget equal justice to all in their individual differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is non hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which nosotros relish in our government extends too to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do non feel called upon to exist aroused with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or fifty-fifty to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot neglect to exist offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this example in our private relations does not make the states lawless equally citizens. Against this fearfulness is our main safeguard, didactics u.s. to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute volume, or vest to that code which, although unwritten, still cannot be broken without best-selling disgrace. (History, Two.34-46)
Although certainly an idealized vision of Athens, Pericles' speech continues to resonate in its advocacy for a complimentary and democratic state and the benefits such a organisation offers. Throughout the work, he emphasizes how the city has been able to achieve its greatness through the freedom of thought and expression of the people. Although commonwealth was developing in Athens long before Pericles, his initiatives allowed information technology to flourish and, as it did, so did Athenian civilisation.
Cultural Achievements
During the Historic period of Pericles, Athens blossomed as a center of education, art, culture, and democracy. Artists and sculptors, playwrights and poets, architects and philosophers all found Athens an heady and enlivening atmosphere for their piece of work. Athens under Pericles saw the rebuilding and expansion of the agora and structure of the temples of the Acropolis including the glory of the Parthenon, begun in 447 BCE. The painter Polygnotus (l. 5th century BCE) created his famous works which were after immortalized by the writer Pausanias (fifty. c. 110 - 180 CE).
The Parthenon
Playwrights Aeschylus (l. c. 525 - c. 456 BCE), Sophocles (l. c. 496 - c. 406 BCE), Euripides (l. c. 484 - 407 BCE), and Aristophanes (fifty. c. 460 - c. 380 BCE) - in short, all of the great Greek writers for the stage - invented theater as it is now known during this menses. Hippocrates (l. c. 460 - c. 370 BCE), who inspired the Hippocratic Oath still taken by physicians today, proficient medicine at Athens while Herodotus (l. c. 484 - 425/413 BCE), the Father of History, traveled and wrote his famous work.
Cracking sculptors like Phidias (fifty. c. 480 - c. 430 BCE), who created the statue of Zeus at Olympia (considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), likewise as the statue of Athena Parthenos for the Parthenon worked at his craft and Myron (fifty. c. 480 - c. 440 BCE) the sculptor produced his masterpiece known every bit the Discus Thrower.
The cracking philosophers Protagoras (fifty. c. 485 - c. 415 BCE) Zeno of Elea (l. c. 465 BCE), and Anaxagoras (50. c. 500 - c. 428 BCE) were all personal friends of Pericles. Anaxagoras, in fact, is said to have influenced Pericles' public demeanor and credence of fate, especially after the decease of Pericles' sons from plague. Socrates (fifty. c. 470/469 - 399 BCE), the founder of western philosophy, too lived and taught in Athens during this period and his students – most notably Plato (50. 428/427 - 348/347 BCE) – would proceed to institute their ain philosophical schools and modify western thought forever.
The Second Peloponnesian War & Death
The Historic period of Pericles, however, could non final any more than whatever other in history. At the beginning of 431 BCE Athens entered into the Second Peloponnesian War with Sparta which would end in Athens' defeat; but Pericles would non alive to run across the fall of his city. In his Funeral Oration, Pericles said that, "Grief is felt non then much for the desire of what nosotros accept never known as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed" (History, Ii.43). The Athenians present at the spoken language would certainly take keenly felt this particular line in reference to those they had lost but, by the finish of the 2nd state of war with Sparta, his words would no doubt have resonated even more as Athens lost everything information technology had worked then hard for.
Ostrakon for Pericles
Soon after the war began, the cracking leader who had directed the urban center through the first conflict died in 429 BCE; the plague struck the city and Pericles was amidst its victims. Bereft of his leadership, the Athenians fabricated error later mistake in their military decisions leading eventually to their defeat by the Spartans in 404 BCE, the destruction of their city's walls, and their occupation and dominion by Sparta.
In his History of the Peloponnesian State of war, Thucydides makes clear what a disaster Pericles' death was for Athens in that those who came after him desired to be popular rather than effective and, in then doing, doomed the city to ruin:
The reason [Pericles was such a superior statesman was that he was] strong in both repute and intellect and was clearly incorruptible, held the masses on a lite rein, and led them rather than let them atomic number 82 him. This was because he did not accept to adapt what he said in order to please his hearers, in an attempt to proceeds power by improper means, but his standing allowed him fifty-fifty to speak against them and provoke their anger. Whenever he saw that they were arrogant and undeservedly confident, he would speak to strike terror into them; and when he saw them unreasonably afraid he would restore their confidence once more. The result was in theory democracy only in fact dominion by the first homo. (II. 64-65)
His successors never lived upwardly to Pericles' ideal leadership and Athens suffered accordingly. Although Thucydides admired and supported Pericles, there is no reason to conclude that his claims are simply a course of bias. History bears out Thucydides' view in that, with the decease of Pericles, Athens roughshod into an intellectual, cultural, and spiritual darkness which the Athenians would struggle with over the adjacent thirty years, culminating in the execution of Socrates in 399 BCE.
Although Pericles has been criticized as a "populist" who appealed to the baser instincts of the people, equally well equally a war-monger who encouraged both wars with Sparta, he quite obviously was able to create an temper of freedom of thought and expression which resulted in some of the greatest contributions to world civilization ever made.
The period of Greek history in which he lived and reigned is rightly known as the Age of Pericles because his initiatives allowed that era to flourish. Even at war, Pericles was able to maintain the social stability necessary for art, literature, and philosophy to flourish and the works of this historic period go along to influence and inspire people around the world in the present twenty-four hours.
This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.
Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/pericles/