In 430429 B.C.E., a mysterious epidemic ravaged Athens, plunging the city into chaos. "[18] Finally, Pericles links his praise of the city to the dead Athenians for whom he is speaking, "for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made hernone of these men allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. Pericles allowed all people to participate in government which also made Athens more of a direct democracy. Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. To win the necessary devotion, the cityor rather its leaders, poets, and teachersmust show that its demands are compatible with the needs of the citizen, and even better, that the city is needed to achieve his own goals. "For the love of honor alone is ever young, and not riches, as some say, but honor is the delight of men when they are old and useless." - Pericles, 'Pericles' Funeral Oration'. By rewarding merit, it avoided the unnatural leveling that is the hallmark of tyranny and encouraged the individual achievement and excellence that makes life sweet and raises the quality of life for everyone. Knowledge of the life of Pericles derives largely from two sources. If we had access to Pericles inner thoughts and to the many other speeches he delivered in his long career, we would possibly discover that he took no less pride in Athenians peaceful achievements of mind and spirit. The average citizen could not look even to his polis for the satisfaction of his greatest spiritual needs. Our educations are different, too. Its ideas are still important for people living in democractic nations today. Prior to the plague's devastation, Athenians were already dying as a result of the war. After all, Athens was a naval power, an imperial capital, and a trading city whose fleets ranged across the ancient world; the contagion, he wrote, probably spread from Ethiopia to Libya to Persia before finally reaching Greece, where Athensa global port for commercial shipswas its first stop. Pericles was born in 495 BCE in Athens, Greece. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. All rights reserved. N.S. They were a very small minority of the total population over which they ruled. The historian Thucydides admired him profoundly and refused to criticize him. Scientists and historians have tried to identify the disease responsible based on the descriptions of Thucydides, but no consensus exists. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Politically he is credited with some kind of rapprochement with Cimon, who is said to have been recalled and allowed to resume the war with Persia, much preferred to fighting other Greeks, but the date of Cimons recall is uncertain, and the rumours are hard to disentangle. Plus: each Wednesday, exclusively for subscribers, the best books of the week. Several funeral orations from classical Athens are extant, which seem to corroborate Thucydides' assertion that this was a regular feature of Athenian funerary custom in wartime. Beyond those advantages, its early champions tried to show that the polis was necessary for civilized life, and therefore deserved the highest sacrifice. Freedom and Duty: Pericles and Our Times | The National Interest In 431 B.C., Pericles urged the popular assembly to declare war against Sparta. The story of the Athenians in the time of Pericles suggests that the creation and survival of democracy requires leadership of a high order. In his speech, Pericles states that he had been emphasising the greatness of Athens in order to convey that the citizens of Athens must continue to support the war, to show them that what they were fighting for was of the utmost importance. The Spartan imposed a property qualification for participation in public life; any Athenian citizen could sit on juries or the council and vote and speak in the assembly. The Athenian democracy, Pericles asserts, far from reducing all to a low common level, raises all its citizens to the level of noblemen by asking them to take part in political life and so to control their own destiny. The outbreak of war among the Greek states in 459 put a premium on military talent, and Pericles only recorded campaign in the next few years was a naval expedition in the Corinthian Gulf in 454, in which Athens defeated Achaea but failed to win more important objectives. From time to time the helots would break out in revolt, threatening the very existence of Sparta. Instead, we put our trust not in secret weapons, but in our own courage when we are called upon to act. These sources are not all ascertainable, but they certainly preserve an invaluable amount of fact and contemporary gossip, which is sometimes nearly as useful. Because of a law he supported restricting Atheniancitizenshipto those of Athenian parentage on both sides, marriage was impossible. A reconstruction of Pericles' house from The Greeks documentary. Rhetorical Analysis of Pericles' Funeral Oration - Bryan Berg The audience is then dismissed. Persuasive Oratory: Pericles was known for his eloquent speeches and persuasive oratory skills. Only rumour associates him directly with the political convulsion of the next two years, which drove Cimon into exile, swung Athens away from its alignment with Sparta, and decisively strengthened the democratic elements in the Athenian constitution; but he probably did support the democratic leader Ephialtes in this period, and his introduction of pay for juries, unfortunately undatable, is a logical consequence of Ephialtes reforms. The Lydian ruler Croesus, the richest man in the world, expecting to hear his own name, asked the Athenian sage, Who was the happiest of mortals? The Persian War, begun as an ill-considered gesture in 499, could be considered ultimately successful. For the annual summer birthday celebration of Athena (the Greek goddess of wisdom for whom the city is named), a procession started at the Dipylon Gatethe largest of 15 gates in the cityand marched more than a mile to the Altar of Athena on the Acropolis. This is no doubt in keeping with his principle of having the speakers in his history t& 6Eovta Eindtv, that is, speak those things that were suit-able for the occasion.1 For we know that the unwritten rules of the The Spartans, from their earliest childhood, seek to acquire courage by painfully harsh training, but we, living our unrestricted life, are no less ready to meet the same dangers they do. 476 Words. ), who said he was quoting Pericles himself. (2021, July 29). THUCYDIDES gives Pericles very little to say in his Funeral Oration about the political institutions of Athenian democracy. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. The arts and philosophy also flourished during Pericles reign, when Socrates and the playwrights Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes produced some of their finest works. Funeral Oration. An examination of the few successful democracies in history suggests that they need to meet three conditions if they are to flourish. [21], Pericles then turns to the audience and exhorts them to live up to the standards set by the deceased, "So died these men as becomes Athenians. This past spring, Richard Bernstein investigated the questions hed been asking his whole careerabout right, wrong, and what we owe one anotherone last time. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, he wrote, with zero modesty, but was done to last forever.. The rewards conferred by these aristocratic virtues are precisely those sought by the epic heroes: greatness, power, honor, fame. Far from eulogizing Pericles in the Funeral Oration, Pericles is subtly depicted as a tyrant, a demagogue, a despot who became a despot by his exploitation of the erotic character of humansan erotic character which the Athenians unleashed in the Persian Wars and then unleashed over the Mediterranean in a vain and tyrannical bid for an empire. THUCYDIDES gives Pericles very little to say in his Funeral - JSTOR In the following speech, Pericles made these points about democracy: Baird, Forrest E., editor. Cimon died after 451, during his last campaign against Persia. Socrates and Pericles, two of these philosophers, had polarizing opinions about the city-state and its citizens. The catastrophe contributed to Athenss shattering defeat, in 404 B.C.E., by the loutish Spartans, who tore down the citys walls and imposed a short-lived but murderous oligarchy. Often regarded as the greatest ruler of Athens and even all of Greece, Pericles fostered the famous democracy of Greece and supervised countless theater, statue, and infrastructure building projects. [21] He explained that fighting for one's country was a great honour, and that it was like wearing a cloak that concealed any negative implications because his imperfections would be outweighed by his merits as a citizen. We have no need of a Homer to praise us or of anyone else whose words will delight us for the moment but whose account of the facts will be discredited by the truth. Where their system of democracy allowed them to have a voice amongst those who made important decisions that would affect them. [3] The remains of the dead[4] were left in a tent for three days so that offerings could be made. The chance to speak brilliantly and with results in the public meeting was a gift given only by the polis, a way of winning kleos by the arts of speech. Around 449 B.C., the Delian League signed the Peace of Callias, which ended nearly 50 years of fighting with the Persians and ushered in two decades of peace. Pericles, a prominent and influential Politian in Athens, has argued that democracy is the best form of government because it fairly produces the most educated and excellent citizens, through freedom to act as they please, which will eventually shape there soul into a great person (Warner 145). We say he has no business being here at all. 1, Routledge, 2016. In the second year of the Peloponnesian War a plague struck Athens, which was crowded with evacuees from the countryside, killing perhaps a quarter of the citys inhabitants. . Its military power and tradition of leadership among the Greeks, the discipline and devotion to the public good displayed by its citizens, had already created an aura of virtue and excellence that a modern scholar has called the Spartan mirage. Pericles needed to confront this challenge, and much of the Funeral Oration is therefore a direct comparison with Sparta. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. . [14] This amounts to a focus on present-day Athens; Thucydides' Pericles thus decides to praise the war dead by glorifying the city for which they died. .he may not wander about comfortably acting like someone with a clean reputation or else he is beaten by his betters. And, once it arrived, its damage knew no bounds, doing terrible harm to democracy itself. In our time democracy is taken for granted, but it is one of the rarest, most delicate, and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience. Peter Aston wrote a choral version, So they gave their bodies,[26] published in 1976.[27]. Pericles' funeral oration is considered to be a valuable speech on the importance of democracy and a sneak peek into the way the people of Athens lived. 86 Copy quote. This analogy can be perceived as an explanation of Socrates view on democracy by rule by the many vs. by one or the few and how many results in a fallen nation. It seemed to them a worthy thing that such an honor should be given at their burial to the dead who have fallen on the field of battle. They did not believe that man was entirely trivial, a mere bit of dust in the vast Cosmic order, such that his passing was a thing of no account. More than 20,000 tons of marble were used, producing the iconic Parthenon and the imposing colonnade of the Propylaea, the entrance gateway. This message has been remembered: during the First World War, London buses carried posters with passages from the speech; in 2012, a memorial in central London to the R.A.F. Illustration by H.M. Herget, Nat Geo Image Collection, Illustration by Time Life Pictures, Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty. Pericles was widely seen as the leader of Athens. Remembering Pericles' Oration in Athens, Greece - RealClearWorld During the war, even in its darkest moments, Pericles could count on a strong response when he reminded the people that they were right to love their city and even to risk their lives for it, because it was uniquely great, and because only by preserving and enhancing it could the ordinary man share in its glory and so achieve a degree of fame and immortality. But they are won by and for all the citizens of democratic Athens, and Pericles does not hesitate to assert the superiority of this collective achievement, going so far as to reject the need for an epic poet to guarantee its renown: We have provided great evidences of our power, and it is not without witnesses; we are the objects of wonder today and will be in the future. (Athens was only a democracy for adult, male citizens of Athenian descent, not for women or slaves, or for foreigners living under imperial rule.) To speak of this legislation as a move toward creating a master race is thus partly misleading, but the demagogic nature of the law seems clear. The newer image, provided by Sparta, took shape no earlier than the seventh century but immediately captured the imagination of many and continued to fascinate Greek thinkers for centuries. In Athenians society, one of the important custom is their funeral. The model of how democracy began is also a study in how it can founder and fall. Pericles also elevated Athenss role within the Delian League, a naval alliance of Greek city-states unified to fight the Persians. [20] He praised Athens for its attributes that stood out amongst their neighbours such as its democracy when he elaborates that trust is justly placed on the citizens rather than relying only on the system and the policy of the city. . Tens of thousands of people died, perhaps as many as one-third of Athenians. After Ephialtes was assassinated in 461 B.C., Pericles emerged as Athenss foremost politician, and he would lead the popular assembly and the city until his death three decades later. 11 Thought-Provoking Quotes By Pericles To save chestnut trees, we may have to play God, Why you should add native plants to your garden, What you can do right now to advocate for the planet, Why poison ivy is an unlikely climate change winner. to turn the rocky hill known as the Acropolis into a breathtaking temple complex. Please select which sections you would like to print: Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford, 198594. The Spartans faced this fundamental problem of the polis in its sharpest form. 2023 Cond Nast. In the opening scene of the Iliad, Achilles honor and reputation are diminished by Agamemnons arrogance, so he retires from the battle and sulks in his tent while the Greeks suffer a series of costly defeats. The following excerpt is from a speech known as "The Funeral Oration," delivered by the Athenian general and politician Pericles in 431 BCE. Pericles. What is Pericles trying to say in his speech? - Heimduo And when such philosophers as Plato modeled their utopian regimes on Sparta, they were building on a tradition that viewed its constitution as a standing rebuke to Athenian democracy. Athenian Democracy Primary Source Doc.docx - Document A: Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. . His father,Xanthippus, began his political career by a dynastic marriage to Agariste of the controversial Alcmaeonid family. In a democracy . The Athenians excluded women, children, resident aliens, and slaves from political life, but the principle of equality within the political community that they invented was the seed of the modern idea of universal egalitarianism that flowered during the French Enlightenment. At the Dionysia Festival in 472 B.C. After the dead had been buried in a public grave, one of the leading citizens, chosen by the city, would offer a suitable speech, and on this occasion Pericles was chosen. But even in Herodotus tale such glory is for the rare individual who had both the ability and the opportunity to perform a great deed. Pericles begins by mentioning the struggles of the Athenian ancestors whom "after many a struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire." . Open Document. . Bequeathed, too, was his innovative approach of conducting an orderly, thorough examination of the past to explain the causesand outcomesof past events. In 431 BCE, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, held their traditional public funeral for all those who had been killed. We obey those who hold office and the laws themselves, especially those enacted for the protection of the oppressed and those which, although unwritten, it is acknowledged shame to violate (2.37.3). His achievements included the construction of the Acropolis, begun in 447. Plato, in his Menexenus, ascribes authorship to Pericles's companion, Aspasia.[9]. The catastrophe was so overwhelming that men, not knowing what would happen next to them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or of law, Thucydides wrote. Monoson, Sara (2002). Pericles. The Delian League effectively became an Athenian empire. Nor did consulting the oracles or praying in the temples, futile pieties which Thucydides dismissively noted were soon discarded. was the sight of people dying like sheep through having caught the disease as a result of nursing others. Neither medicine nor quackery helped. Pericles therefore asserts that we conduct our public life as free men [eleuthero.i] (2.37.2). The satisfaction of these passions normally implies extraordinary inequality; yet Pericles believed it could be achieved by the citizens of a democracy based on legal and political equality. Periclean Athens and Modern Democracy - AEI AI on Leadership - by David Ragland, DBA, MS, PMP Why Was Athens Defeated? The kind of man formed by such a constitution reflects its shortcomings: He lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or men of business, once more in that. Nobody knows what the plague was, although classically minded epidemiologists still debate its cause. Pericles. Pericles's speech first gave praise to the ancestors, for which they are the people who built the city from the ground up and fought for democracy. In contrast, Pericles points to the limited jurisdiction of the Athenian regime, which leaves a considerable space for individualism and privacy, free from public scrutiny: Not only do we conduct our public life as free men but we are also free of suspicion of one another as we go about our every-day lives. Translation and the establishment of liberal democracy in nineteenth-century England. The policy of war with Persia was abandoned and a formal peace probably made. That Pericles immediately succeeded the assassinated Ephialtes as head of the democratic party in 461 is an ancient oversimplification; there were other men of considerable weight in Athens in the next 15 years. The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide. Full article: Jowett's Thucydides: A corpus-based analysis of When wealthy aristocrats won victories in athletic contests, they could pay poets like Pindar to preserve their memories in verse; they could sponsor public monuments by great architects and sculptors; the richest of them could even erect temples to the gods, dedicated in their own names. left his mark on the world in far more ways than the iconic Acropolis that still defines the skyline of Athens. Pericles was a famous Greek general. Optimists may believe that democracy is the inevitable and final form of human society, but the historical record shows that up to now it has been the rare exception. In the process, he presented his vision for Athens and the kind of citizen its unique constitution and way of life would produce. His selection as public orator was thus a tribute to his stature, reputation, and political power. 208p. And they especially need leaders with the talents to persuade their impatient citizens that these political institutions are the necessary first foundation for a decent regime and a good life for all. The first known date in his life is 472 bce, when he paid for the production of the playwright Aeschylus Persian trilogy. Significantly he begins recounting the speech by saying: " ", i.e. This ordinary woman hid Anne Frankand kept her story alive, This Persian marvel was lost for millennia. Nevertheless, Thucydides was extremely meticulous in his documentation, and records the varied certainty of his sources each time. From artistry to politics, ancient Greece left a considerable impression on world history. Donald Kagan is Bass Professor of History and Classics and Western Civilization at Yale University. But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. How did Cleisthenes reform Athenian democracy? While Pericles chooses to praise the Athenian citizen, Socrates criticizes Athens . Who was Pericles? - DailyHistory.org For Pericles, Athens itself was a competitor for these prizes in the agon among poleis, past and present. The style is deliberately elaborate, in accord with the stylistic preference associated with the sophists. These solemn commemorations, apparently unique to the Athenian democracy, had a political dimension, for the speaker was someone chosen by the polis as the man who seemed wisest in judgment and foremost in reputation (Thucydides 2.34.6). In 461 B.C., he joined the reformer Ephialtes in organizing a vote in the popular assembly that stripped all remaining powers from the Areopagus, the old noble council. These facts were obvious to all and might be expected to deter aggression. He was too scrupulous to blame the epidemic on the Spartansan ancient reproach to those today who try to pin blame on foreign rivals. [21] He regards the soldiers who gave their lives as truly worth of merit. They also complained of the lack of uniform good character in the citizens, who were unpredictably involved in various activities and masters of none, with negative consequences for their military ability and moral quality. Pericles met the challenge of the heroic tradition by showing that democracy would bring to all the citizens of Athens the advantages heretofore reserved for the well-born few. In fact, it is a prerequisite for them, for the brave deeds performed by enraged heroes who give no thought to danger are, by his definition, not brave at all. Then a funeral procession was held, with ten cypress coffins carrying the remains, one for each of the Athenian tribes, and another left symbolically empty for the missing or those whose remains were unable to be recovered. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. For the first time in history a Greek state could conduct its life and plan for the future in the expectation of a lasting peace. ThoughtCo, Jul. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles Funeral Oration in Depth. A Rhetorical Analysis Of Pericles's Speech. In his oration, he made democracy, freedom, and justice the main rationale for citizens . Visionary Leadership: Pericles had a clear vision for Athens and articulated it to the citizens, emphasizing the importance of democracy, civic engagement, and the pursuit of knowledge and arts . "[22], Pericles addresses the widows of the dead only here, telling them that "the greatest glory for a woman is not to be spoken of at all, either for good or ill."[23] This passage is often cited as characteristic of Athenian attitudes to women's role in public life,[24] but is also connected to the standard behaviour of women as mourners at private funerals.[25]. According to Lincoln, democracy means " Government of the people, by the people and for the people," (Nicolay, 209). Pericles delivered the oration not only to bury the dead but to praise democracy. In 431, shortly after the Peloponnesian War had broken out . [5] We can be reasonably sure that Pericles delivered a speech at the end of the first year of the war, but there is no consensus as to what degree Thucydides's record resembles Pericles's actual speech. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. In Minneapolis, Protesters Confront the Policeand One Another. Yet Thucydides swiftly dismissed such speculation. Among those who died from this plague were Pericles and two of his sons. That conception ran counter to Greek experience, which had always been full of turbulence and warfare. The Acropolis looms over tourists in Athens. With brilliant brevity Lincoln answered some questions by pointing to the greatness of the cause at issue. He met both challenges by adapting the first to his own purposes and by rejecting the latter as inferior to the new society he had introduced in Athens. At the begining of the war, Athens and Sparta both thought they knew how to win. Please be respectful of copyright. . We thought we knew turtles. It was an established Athenian practice by the late 5th centuryBCE to hold a public funeral in honour of all those who had died in war. Pericles married in his late 20s but divorced some 10 years later. The Athenian democracy, Pericles asserts, far from reducing all to a low common level, raises all its citizens to the level of noblemen by asking them to take part in political life and so to. The speech that Pericles delivers is such a dramatic departure from the customary oration that it is often considered a eulogy of Athens itself. Alcohol-free bars, no-booze cruises, and other tools can help you enjoy travel without the hangover. . References. Updates? . Thought is not a barrier to the achievement of heroic goals. Only one ancient account mentions the existence of Xerxes Canal, long thought to be a tall tale. The citizen of a free society has the right to ask, Why should I risk my life for my city? Pericles begins by praising the dead, as the other Athenian funeral orations do, by regard the ancestors of present-day Athenians (2.36.12.36.3), touching briefly on the acquisition of the empire. In 451 or 450 Pericles carried a law confining Athenian citizenship to those of Athenian parentage on both sides. .In the streets he must get out of the way. When the Mytilenean poet Alcaeus was sent into exile the loss he complained of was not his house and fields but the scenes of political life: I yearn, Agesilaidas, to hear the herald summon the assembly and the council (Alcaeus, fragment 130).
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