Ancient_History_Pericles_Early_Life

Final assessment Pericles. A) Pericles was born around 495 BC in the deme of Cholargos (modern day Kamatero or Peristeri), just north of Athens. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus, under whose leadership Athens had won in Mycale in 479 BC, though he had been ostracized only five years before. Pericles' mother, Agariste, was the offspring of the noble though controversial family of the Alcmaeonids. It was this marriage that boosted Xanthippus' political career. Agariste was the great-granddaughter of the tyrant of Sicyon Cleisthenes and the niece of the Athenian reformer Cleisthenes also belonging to the Alcmaeonidae family. According to Herodotus and Plutarch a few days before Pericles' birth, Agariste dreamed she bore a lion, an ambivalent symbolism, alluding to the unusual size of Pericles' skull. In fact, the asymmetric dimensions of his head led the comedians of his era to taunt and ridicule him. His family's nobility and wealth allowed him to follow his natural inclination toward education. He learned music from the masters (Damon or Pythocleides) and he is considered to be the first politician to attribute great importance to philosophy. He enjoyed the society of Zeno of Elea and Anaxagoras, who became a close friend and influence on him. Pericles' thinking and rhetorical charisma are due partly to the philosopher’s teaching of emotional calm in the face of trouble as well as skepticism about divine phenomena. His proverbial calmness and self-control are also regarded as resulting from the philosopher’s influence. Because of customary in Athenian society, Pericles married one of his close relatives in an arranged marriage. He had two sons named Paralus and Xanthippus with his wife. However, his marriage was not a happy one, he got divorced when he was about 50 years old, and lived with the woman he truly loved Aspasia of Miletus, she was said to come from a wealthy family that’s why she was educated, but living in Athens she was a Medic. Some ancient historians said was a brothel keeper, historians traditionally said that she was a hetaera or high class escort. In 472 BC, eight years after the defeat of the Persians at Salamis, the young Pericles, now in his late 20s, sponsored a major dramatic production for the festival of Dionysus. As well as providing entertainment for the whole city, this annual event was also an opportunity for sponsors to bring their name to wider public attention. Over a decade later is when Pericles became a statesman around 461. However his first real involvement in politics started when he became involved with a politician called Ephialtes. Together they organised a vote in the popular assembly that deprived the Areopagus, the old noble council, of its remaining powers. It was an action that would have huge consequences, and many historians believe it to mark the defining moment of Athenian democracy. Pericles had made a bold move by shifting his loyalties from the noble families who ruled Athens to the common citizens of Athens, urging the participation of all citizens in the government. And in 461 BC, Pericles eliminated his chief rival Cimon by having him ostracized, which was a form of punishment at the time that banished a guilty person from Athens for ten years. The crime for which Cimon was ostracized was that he had betrayed the city by being a friend to influential persons in Sparta. Here were some of the laws that were enacted during Pericles administration: • Poor persons were able to attend plays in the Athens theatre pay by tax money. • The property requirement was lowered for people to be appointed as public servants. • Generous wages were paid to persons serving as jurors in the Supreme Court of Athens. • People could only gain Athenian citizenship if both of their parents were from Athens. Most historians believe that Pericles did a good job of strengthening the democratic institutions of Athens. However, his opponents (for example Cimon) thought that he was carrying democratization too far; his populism would eventually collapse because the government was being run by unqualified people. From about 454 BC until his death, for more than 20 years, Pericles led numerous expeditions, mainly naval ones. He never undertook of his own accord a battle involving much uncertainty and peril, he was always cautious and he did not accede to the "vain impulses of the citizens”. He based his military policy on Themistocles' principle that Athens prevalence would depend on its superior naval firepower. That is why the strengthening of the navy was one of his main preoccupations. Nonetheless, his strategic genius remains questioned and a common criticism against him is that he always was a better politician and orator than strategist. During the Peloponnesian war, Pericles had instigated a defensive “grand strategy”, which was aimed to exhaust the enemy and the preservation of the “status quo”. The “Periclean Grand Strategy” was rejected of appeasement, but he managed to persuade the Athenian public to follow it. His tactics during the Peloponnesian War were also criticized. Many of his internal opponents advocated a more aggressive stance against Sparta and the pillage of Attica reinforced the voices of opposition. In an attempt to find out if the more or less passive strategy he sculpted was right and if the Athenians lost the war because of his initial choices, we must point out that Pericles' syllogism was likely more political than military in nature. He probably believed that in a prolonged war the winner would be the one who would endure more and a prosperous city like Athens met all the requirements for achieving a triumph, if its leadership could remain resolute, patient and focused on its strategic goals. And, had he lived longer, he may have attained his goals through his persistence. The problem may be that those succeeding him lacked his genius, his composure, and a clear vision. The most charismatic of his successors, Alcibiades, would have a completely different plan in mind and what may be called a dubious agenda. B) 447 Pericles began the project he is most famous for: the building program on the Acropolis. Although Athens technically won the Persian war, that war left their economy in a shambles with many important public buildings destroyed. Immediately after the Persian war, the sentiment was not to rebuild the temples, but to leave them as evidence of the barbarism of the Persians. Eventually, after 33 years, public sentiment changed. When some large private pledges were collected to help finance the restoration of the temples, Pericles led the restoration effort. Although Pericles recommended economy in the restoration effort, in the end, no expense was spared. The Parthenon was the most spectacular and most well known of the restored temples. Iktinos and Kallikrates were the co-architects of the Parthenon; Pheidias was in charge of the sculptures to decorate it. Through its great naval alliance the city controlled an empire - Pericles now insisted his countrymen support him in constructing a building whose magnificence, architectural genius, and sheer brilliance would reflect the prestige of imperial Athens, the building of the Parthenon was Pericles' greatest triumph and he oversaw the project personally. Costing 5000 talents in the first year alone - a figure equivalent to some $3 billion in today's money - the building was completed in less than 15 years, despite attempts to derail the projects by Pericles' political opponents. Made from 20 thousand tons of marble quarried from nearby Mount Pentelicus, the huge cost of the building was partly financed from the treasury of the Delian League, which caused great resentment among many of Athens' allies, who were to be the source of many future troubles... Here is what Thucydides said about the buildings that were built during the rule of Pericles: “The works of Pericles are even more admired--though built in a short time, they have lasted a very long time. For, in its beauty, each work was, even at that time, ancient, and yet, in its perfection, each looks even at the present time as it were fresh and newly built. Thus there is a certain bloom of newness in each building and an appearence of being untouched by the wear of time. It is as if some everflowering life and unaging spirit had been enfused into the creation of these works.” Pericles had such a profound influence on Athenian society that Thucydides, his contemporary historian, acclaimed him as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens, roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", though the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars, or as late as the next century. Pericles promoted the arts and literature; this was a chief reason Athens holds the reputation of being the educational and cultural centre of the ancient Greek world. He started an ambitious project that built most of the surviving structures on the Acropolis (including the Parthenon). This project beautified the city, exhibited its glory, and gave work to the people. Furthermore, Pericles fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist. In my opinion he wasn’t just lucky, because no one can depend on luck to get re elected every year. However he was lucky in some ways for example, being born into a wealthy, high class family, which provided him with excellent education. He was overly ambitious, because “Pericles role in consolidating and extending democracy would have been enough to assure him and honored place in the history books. But it was his role as promoter of Athenian glory that made his name virtually a household word and rendered the phrase “Pericleans Athens” a synonym for the harmonious union of political freedom and cultural excellence.” He was overly ambitious in creating Athens into something that would stay in our history book, it would seem he was looking far beyond the future, it was Pericles who encouraged the explosion of activity in architecture, literature, philosophy, visual arts, as well as science, mathematics and rhetoric, which made Athens in the 5th century a permanent touchstone of public creative achievement. He was truly a remarkable person, but he was a victim of circumstance, dying from the plaque. Appendix 'All kinds of enterprises should be created which will provide an inspiration for every art, find employment for every hand... we must devote ourselves to acquiring things that will be the source of everlasting fame.' “From about 458-56, Pericles had the Long Walls built between Athens and the Piraeus, a peninsula with three harbors about 4.5 miles from Athens.” In 430, the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica. At the same time a plague broke out in the overcrowded city to which the rural residents had fled. Pericles was suspended for the office of strategos. He was found guilty of theft and fined 50 talents. Because Athens still needed him, Pericles was then re-instated, but then, about a year after he lost his own two sons in the plague, Pericles died in the fall of 429, two and a half years after the Peloponnesian War began. Pericles belonged to the local tribe of Acamantis and his early years were quiet, partly because of his intrinsic introversion, he avoided public appearances, preferring his studies instead.