Good morning, good afternoon, Dr. Bruce's Greek history class. Today I'm going to be talking about the famous Greek character named Pericles. So what we know about Pericles, he was born in 495 BC and he died in 429 BC at the age of 66 due to the plague.
Pericles was born into the Athenian aristocracy and his father was named Xanthippus. Pericles inherited property and land north of Athens that made him very wealthy at a young age. What we know about Pericles is mostly written by the historian Thucydides, who is seen as the first historian. He wrote about Pericles in the midst of the two Peloponnesian Wars.
Additionally, Plutarch, about 500 years later, filled in the gaps of what was not known about Pericles written by Thucydides. So, some context of Pericles'early life. As stated again, he was born into a very wealthy and noble family, as his father was a prominent general and his mother also came from a very powerful family. Pericles was exposed to the ideas of democracy, governance, and philosophy from a very young age. His teacher slash mentor was a man named Anaxagoras, and blessed with an education, resources, and a career.
and connections necessary to play a vital role in Athens development from a very young age. Pericles additionally grew up in a time of great change and opportunity for Athens as Greece had just banded together and defeated the massive Persian wave that was going to demolish their entire society. However, coming together as one unit they expelled them and experienced great growth during this time.
Athens was emerging into what it would be known as its golden age. With great wealth and great influence and great innovation, problems arose within the city-states. Who and how were they going to manage this new power? Internal conflict gripped Athens during these periods.
So first, how did Pericles come into power? The first instance of Heracles seeing an increase in popularity was when he ostracized Cimon. In 464, a massive earthquake ravaged Sparta in the city, killing many of its soldiers.
Cimon led an expedition to aid the Spartans who needed some resources to recover from the disastrous earthquake. However, the Spartans were more concerned with the Helots'rebellion. The Helots were somewhat enslaved by the Spartans, and they saw this earthquake as an opportunity to take advantage of the misfortune of the Spartans.
The Spartans rejected the Athenians'help, as they did not want the Athenians to catch wind of their secret practices amongst the Helots. Athens was sent back quickly and rudely. back to their city. And inside the city, questions lingered of how they could let Sparta enslave fellow Greeks. And this became an early point of tension between the two city-states.
Back in Athens, Simon was seen as the scapegoat for this failed mission to help the Spartans. Pericles gained his popularity by leading the ostracization of Simon for wasting the public's funds. This successfully eliminated Pericles'biggest political opponent as Simon was sent to exile for 10 years for this expedition failure. The second event that saw Pericles increase his power was the assassination of Ephialtes.
Ephialtes was a mentor and an extremely close ally to Pericles who was in power as Pericles was just coming up. Ephialtes'political background includes that he started sort of beef between the elites and the democratic factions because he passed reforms that took away powers from the Aeropagus and gave it to congressmen who were elected by the people. Afiolte's reforms regarding democracy made him a huge target for Athenian elites to be assassinating him. He was assassinated in 461 BC and little is known about how it happened or who did it.
The immediate result was a power vacuum in the city of Athens. However, Pericles had an aristocratic background, military experience, and extremely well and extremely great oratory skills that gave him a well-known reputation in the city. He used the momentum off of the back of Ephialtes.
to appeal to the masses and further the democratic ideology. His popularity and reputation saw him seize power in Athens. In 461 BC, he was elected as strategioi, which gave him political influence and command of the city's military. Thirdly, we have the First Peloponnesian War.
So, early tensions arose because the Delian League was becoming increasingly more about an extension of Athenian power and politics rather than Greek alliance for mutual defense. The city-states paid Athens to defend them rather than send troops or supplies to themselves, and this money Athens received from the city-states made them extremely rich. Historian Edith Hamilton once wrote, the temptation to acquire still more power proved as always irresistible. Very soon the free confederacy was being turned into the Athenian Empire. So where did this lead?
This led to Sparta and the Athenians becoming the two largest and most powerful city-states because smaller city-states were joining either one side or the other to not be overtaken or destroyed by these large city-states. Sparta feared because of Athens'great naval power that they would become an empire and take over fellow Greeks. And so this is how the war broke out.
Hamilton continued by writing, the motive power was greed, that strange passion for power and possession, which no power and no possession can satisfy. Power or its equivalent wealth created the desire for more power, more wealth. The Athenians and the Spartans fought for one reason only, because they were powerful and therefore were...
compelled to seek more power. Under Pericles'command, neither side can gain an advantage in this war. A truce was orchestrated on Pericles'behalf by none other than his former political opponent, Simon.
This allowed Pericles to bring his attention elsewhere in Greece and his own city-state. Pericles issued his Congress decree of 499 BC. The goal of this decree was to use the Delian League funds to rebuild what the Persians had previously destroyed. However, Sparta refused the invitation to attend this meeting, so the meeting stalled out and ultimately failed.
However, it served as propaganda against Sparta, villainizing them, and it also increased Pericles'popularity for initiating such a meeting that promoted democracy in such elaborate projects. But Thucydides, the historian, challenged the ideas of this meeting, claiming it was immoral to use the League's funds for buildings so outlandish and expensive. Thucydides, for his opinion, was exiled in 433 BC, and it left Pericles unchallenged and indispensable towards the Athenian Empire.
Next, we have the funeral oration. For context, during the war, Pericles encountered some of the greatest intellects of his time. Also during the war, he divorced his wife, who is unknown, and started a romantic relationship with a woman named Aspasia, who is an extremely talented writer.
It is unclear if Aspasia was the writer of this speech or any of his speeches, but it is clear she may have had some influence on his writing. However, Previous to his relationship with Aspasia, it's proven that he had exceptional oratory skills before they met. One of his best speeches came after the conclusion of the first Peloponnesian War, the funeral oration.
It begins, This is why it's called a democracy. In addition to democracy, this speech discussed his idealized views of Athens and honored the fallen soldiers. This celebration of democracy allowed it to flourish along with Greek culture in this time period. So, what was the impact of Pericles?
First, the Periclean vision. Under Pericles, Athens became the center of art, education, and culture in the entire world. Many of the most famous artists, playwrights, architects, poets, and philosophers came from this time period.
Pericles expanded the Agora and the construction of the Parthenon began in 447 BC, including other major architectural projects. Famous figures under Pericles such as Hippocrates and Herodotus paved the way for even greater influential figures like Socrates and Plato. The freedom of our thoughts.
in literature changed how thought and education were forever and for the rest of the western world. Heracles was more than just a statesman but he was a philosopher of leadership. His vision understood how fragile democracy was. He believed that a citizen was not a subject of the state but rather a participant in governance.
This can be shown by his state payment for jurors. that enabled even the poor citizens to participate by giving them a small payment for practicing their civic duties. His ideal was that citizens can pursue their visions of excellence while contributing to the common good.
He believed public service and public achievements could exist in the same space. His power did not come from fear, but from his ability to persuade others and inspire the masses. Next up are his political and military triumphs. In 443, the Athenians founded a colony in southern Italy. This didn't have as much influence as Pericles would have liked.
However, it began what would be known as the Athenian Empire. Pericles also took a fleet to the Black Sea to secure the grain route from the Crimean Peninsula that supplied the city with a plethora of grains and gave them huge supplies of corn. In 447 BC, Pericles led an expedition to expel barbarians from the Thracian peninsula of Gallipoli, establishing Athenian colonies in this region.
This map shows the peninsula that they took over. Additionally, Pericles initiated the building of the Long Walls. which are created as more of a defensive strategy that allowed Athens to still have naval access even when the city was under siege.
His focus on naval superiority created the best navy on earth. These long walls were approximately 15 miles in length. Athens was 15 miles away from the coast and the walls went all the way to the sea. So instead of The farmers bringing crops into the city, boats would bring crops into the city from distant foreign lands.
Last but not least, his greatest achievement was definitely the expansion of democracy under his rule. Next, we have the Second Polypenesian War. In 431 BC, the Second Polypenesian War broke out.
Heracles'main strategic ideas remained clear during this war. He was an admiral rather than a general, an admiral meeting the leader of a naval unit. And Athens'naval resources were immeasurably superior to its land power.
He wanted to evacuate the countryside and bring them into the long walls that they had built. His plan was to decline battle with the Spartan army as he knew their infantry would destroy his land force because his strength was in the navy. They relied on their fleet for food and to secure the outskirts of their empire.
Heracles thought that the Athenian reserves would be enough to last them for this long and bitter haul. However, it turned out that the cost of this war was far more than he had calculated. His plan also failed to explain how the siege would ever end, but there are some indications that he had plans for aggression in the later stages. This strategy of hiding inside the walls became sort of a political weakness for Pericles.
Many farmers and many middle-class soldiers suffered from low morale as they were forced to leave their land and hunker down in the city and watch it burn. It became not a battle between hoplites and sailors, but between soldiers and the common people's property. Additionally, the quality of life for lower-class citizens declined as the city became overcrowded and they were forced to relocate into more cramped spaces.
The early stages of this war saw no success to counterbalance the discomfort of being inside of the city walls for this long. Pericles was eventually disposed from office and given huge fines, but he was soon later reelected. What quickly followed proved to be the biggest consequence and an unforeseen consequence at that of his strategy, which was the plague.
This plague took the lives of approximately one-fourth of the population of the city, including their leader, Pericles himself. So, the death of the great leader, Pericles. Pericles would only live to see a fraction of the brutal conflict that was the Second Peloponnesian War, as he died in 429 BC, and the war did not end until 404 BC. The city of Athens greatly missed his excellent leadership for the rest of this war. They made military mistake after military mistake without his leadership at the helm.
Additionally, many of his successors never really lined up with his ideals of democracy and military strategies. Many of Pericles'critics say that he was much of a populist, that he appealed to the baser instincts of people, and that he was warmongering with the Spartans. and his lack of a long-term strategy in the war ultimately led to its failure.
Also, ironically, Pericles'visions of expansions and freedoms that worked early on in this war ended up being their biggest downfalls, as expanding their navy massively proved to be a huge expense, especially when it was constantly being destroyed and having to be rebuilt. But, nonetheless, Pericles... created an atmosphere of freedom and art and literature that has never been seen before in the ancient world up to that point.
The golden age of Greece was when he ruled and it is known for their flourishing of philosophy and literature. Pericles understood that the greatness of a city, a state, or a nation is not measured by its wealth or power alone but the character and commitment of its people. His visions of the greater of Athens as a city of both freedom and responsibilities continues to serve as a model for societies around the world.
Without his leadership, Athens fell into a dark age over the next 30 years. Thank you.