Pericles

Pericles
ca. 495 – 429 BC
Bust of Pericles after Cresilas, Altes Museum, Berlin
Place of birth	Athens
Place of death	Athens
Allegiance	Athens
Rank	General (Strategos)
Battles/wars	Battle in Sicyon and Acarnania (454 BC) Second Sacred War (448 BC) Expulsion of barbarians from Gallipoli (447 BC) Samian War (440 BC) Siege of Byzantium (438 BC) Peloponnesian War (431–429 BC)

Pericles or Perikles (ca. 495–429 BC, Greek: Περικλῆς, meaning "surrounded by glory") was a prominent and influential statesman. He also was an orator, and general of Athens. He lived between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. He was descended, through his mother, from the Alcmaeonid family.

Pericles had a big influence on Athenian society. Thucydides, his contemporary historian, described 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.

In Pericles late 20’s he sponsored a major dramatic production for the festival of Dionysus, and he also entertained the whole city. Pericles also got married and had 2 sons. They never found out his wife’s name. A decade later the people started to like him more and more. He got involved with the politics called Ephialtes. Pericles and Ephialtes took away the nobles powers and once they did that there would be consequences. For what they did Pericles’ ally Ephialtes was later assassinated.

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 made the city more beautiful., It also showed its glory, and gave work to the people. Furthermore, Pericles fostered Athenian democracy to such an extent that critics call him a populist.

References

Works directly about Pericles (Greek and Roman)

• Aristophanes, The Acharnians. See original text in Perseus program.
• Aristotle: Constitution of the Athenians on Wikisource. See original text in Perseus program.
• Aristotle, Politika (Politics). See original text in Perseus program.
• Cicero, De Oratore. See original text in Perseus program.
• Diodorus Siculus, Library, 12th Book. See original text in Perseus program.
• Herodotus, The Histories, VI. See original text in Perseus program.
• Plato, Alcibiades I. See original text in in Perseus program, from Plato; W.R.M. Lamb (trans.) (1955). Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674991842. 
• Plato, Gorgias. See original text in Perseus program, from Plato; John Burnet (ed.) (1903). Platonis Opera. Oxford University Press. 
• Plato, Menexenus. See original text in Perseus program, from Plato; W.R.M. Lamb (trans.) (1925). Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674991850. 
• Plato, Phaedrus, See original text in Perseus program, from Plato; John Burnet (ed.) (1903). Platonis Opera. Oxford University Press. 
• Plutarch, Cimon. See original text in Perseus program.
• Plutarch, Pericles. See original text in Perseus program.
• Quintilian, Institutiones. See original text in The Latin Library.
• Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War on Wikisource, I-III. See original text in Perseus program.
• Xenophon (?), Constitution of Athens. See original text in Perseus program.

Works about works about Pericles

• Blois de, Lukas (1997). An Introduction to the Ancient World. Routledge (UK). ISBN 0-415-12774-2. 
• Ruden, Sarah (2003). Lysistrata. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 0-87220-603-3. 

Even more works

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Pericles

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Pericles

Wikimedia Commons has images, video, and/or sound related to:

Pericles

• Abbott, Evelyn (1898). Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 
• Brock Roger, Hodkinson Stephen (2003). Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925810-4. 
• Gardner, Percy (1902). Ancient Athens. 
• Grant, Arthur James (1893). Greece in the Age of Pericles. John Murray. 
• Hesk, John (2000). Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64322-8. 
• Kagan, Donald (1991). Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. The Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86395-2. 
• Lummis, Douglas C. (1997). Radical Democracy. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8451-0. 
• Ober, Josiah (2001). Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08981-7. 
• Rhodes, P.J. (2005). A History of the Classical Greek World: 478-323 BC. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-22565-X. 
• Whibley, Leonard (1889). A History of the Classical Greek World: 478-323 BC. University Press. 
• Gore Vidal, Creation (novel) for a fictional account of Pericles and a Persian view of the wars.