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Introduction: Athenian History and Society in the Age of Pericles
- Edited by Loren J. Samons II, Boston University
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles
- Published online:
- 28 March 2009
- Print publication:
- 15 January 2007, pp 1-23
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Summary
Sources
Our literary sources for the study of mid-fifth-century Athens consist of contemporary Greek historians (especially Herodotus and Thucydides), Athenian orators and intellectuals (especially Andocides, Antiphon, Plato, and the anonymous author known as Pseudo-Xenophon or “The Old Oligarch”), and Aristotle's works analyzing Athenian and Greek political life (the Politics and the Constitution of the Athenians, the latter probably but not certainly composed by Aristotle). Besides the references to older (but no longer extant) works found in such late authorities as Plutarch and the Hellenistic and Byzantine commentators, we also possess a significant number of fifth-century decrees (psephismata) passed by vote in the Athenian assembly. The Athenians often inscribed these measures on stone pillars (stelai), and fragments of many of these decrees (and other inscribed documents) have survived into the present age.
Plutarch composed his biography of Pericles (and those of his contemporaries Themistocles, Aristeides, Cimon, Nicias, and Alcibiades) between ca. A.D. 90 and 120. The biographer was therefore removed from his fifth-century B.C. subjects by more than five centuries. Plutarch's anecdotal style and purpose - to shed light on his subjects' characters rather than their political careers - make his work difficult for the historian to exploit confidently. Nevertheless, Plutarch had access to contemporary fifth-century sources lost to us, and any attempt to flesh out Athenian life or understand Athenian politics in the Age of Pericles must rely heavily (if often uneasily) on his biographical works.
Conclusion: Pericles and Athens
- Edited by Loren J. Samons II, Boston University
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles
- Published online:
- 28 March 2009
- Print publication:
- 15 January 2007, pp 282-308
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Summary
Pericles casts a long shadow. Undoubtedly the most important figure in the history of Athenian democracy, he nonetheless suffers from a kind of mythologization. Like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, Pericles has become larger (and smaller) than life. To moderns, he often seems a kind of disembodied spokesman for democratic values, transmitted to us through less than careful readings, summaries, or decontextualized quotations from Thucydides' account of Pericles' Funeral Oration. Many people know that Pericles in that address called Athens the “school of Hellas,” and that he praised Athenian government and society in contrast to the Spartans' regime. Yet few authorities have emphasized the primary thrust of the speech, which is thoroughly militaristic, collectivist, and unstintingly nationalistic. Beside Pericles' image in the popular mind, and at times clouding the very picture of him, are the famous buildings on the Acropolis of Athens, built as part of the “Periclean” program of construction. In fact, the Parthenon and (a very small part of) Pericles' speech stand together as the most concrete modern images of ancient democracy and classical Athens.
This is a strange situation. For, like Pericles' career, the Parthenon is not a testament to Athenian democracy, humanism, or liberalism, although some scholars still hold versions of this view. A temple to Athens's patron deity, Athena, the building was financed in part by money the Athenians had exacted from other Greek states. Its frieze seemingly depicted (at least in part) the Athenian festival known as the Panathenaea (i.e., sacred rites that were “All Athena” or “All Athenian”).