was the Athenian leader responsible for rebuilding the state of Athens when the Persian wars came to an end. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (aftermath of Lamian War). Islands and city-states across the Aegean built ships, armed crews and sent lavish donations to the League's treasury on the island of Delos. No source provides any background to this proposal; it is not even clear whether it was retroactive. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. He also led Athens during the period of the Peloponnesian War. Here, a group of independent Greek city-states, including Athens, decided to form a voluntary organisation called the League of Delos. The upper classes certainly had no prejudice against foreign marriages; the lower classes may well have had more, and, on the whole, it is possible to view Pericles here as championing exclusivist tendencies against immigrants who might break down the fabric of Athenian society. Pericles married in his late 20s but divorced some 10 years later. 1 - Mercantilism benefited the colonies. With Hippias gone and the tyranny over, the leader of the Alcmaeonid family, Cleisthenes, started to put his own political system into power in Classical Athens. Ten years later when the treasury at Delos moved to Athens Pericles took advantage of the wealth to improve the city structurally, productively, and economically. A) Organized direct democracy in which a large number of male citizens took part in day to day affairs of government. © 2021 Education Expert, All rights reserved. Pericles came from a rich and high-ranking noble family. Pericles. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Pericles 495–429 B.C. Among the contributions made by Pericles to the Athenian democracy was the payment of magistrates. After the second defeat of the Persians, all of Greece rejoiced. Pericles was an Athenian statesman, he led many naval expeditions in more that 20 years. Pericles was born into the first generation able to use the new weapon of the popular vote against the old power of family politics. The gaps are partly filled by the Greek writer Plutarch, who, 500 years later, began writing the life of Pericles to illustrate a man of unchallengeable virtue and greatness at grips with the fickleness of the mob and finished rather puzzled by the picture he found in his sources of Pericles’ responsibility for a needless war. 4) What are three ways in which Pericles contributed to Athenian greatness? His opponents often pointed to his liberal spending of money on public art and architecture. Knowledge of the life of Pericles derives largely from two sources. Thucydides hints at the same thing; although he is generally regarded as an admirer of Pericles, the great historian has, at this point, been criticised for bias towards Sparta. When the United States voted against joining the League of Nations. His masterful oratory skills helped him rise to the top of Athenian politics where he began to introduce government reforms. He did not lose his reign till his death. Why do you think such a law exists in the first place? The three main goals he had were; to strengthen the Athenian democracy, to hold and strengthen the empire, and also to glorify Athens. In 1781, George Washington forced the surrender of lord Cornwallis at? The historian Thucydides admired him profoundly and refused to criticize him. Author of. One is Pericles, and the other one is Alcibiades. He made the Acropolis of Athens as a symbol of the greatness of the city. Scientists and historians have tried to identify the disease responsible based on the descriptions of Thucydides, but no consensus exists. Pericles set about toppling the Areopagus (ar-ee-OP-uh-guhs), or the noble council of Athens, in favor of a more democratic system that represented the interests of the people. The last phase in the political development of Athens and its democracy occurred during the political ascendancy of the democratic leader Pericles. The Persian Wars affected the Greek city-states because they came under the leadership of Athens and were to never again invade the Persian Armies. That Pericles’ skull was of unusual shape seems well attested, but one can hardly speculate about the possible psychological consequences. download word file, 4 pages, 3.0 His position rested on his continual reelection to the generalship and on his prestige, based, according to Thucydides, on his intelligence and incorruptibility. 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. His achievements included the construction of the Acropolis, begun in 447. Year 12 Ancient History Assessment Task. However, many argue that Pericles was not a true democrat and claim that he was a populist and a demagogue. How is the history of king Leopold taught in the Congo? Only those born to two people of Athenian citizen status could henceforth be citizens and eligible. Pericles was an Athenian statesman, he led many naval expeditions in more that 20 years. C) The economy thrived under Pericles and he built magnificent temples. 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. This helped his father, Xanthippus, focus on a political career. 3. Nonetheless, some women, known as hetaeras , did receive an education with the specific purpose of entertaining men, similar to the Japanese geisha tradition. From him Pericles may have inherited a leaning toward the people, along with landed property at Cholargus, just north of Athens, which put him high, though not quite at the highest level, on the Athenian pyramid of wealth. Pericles also elevated Athens’s role within the Delian League, a naval alliance of Greek city-states unified to fight the Persians. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. However, during this war, he was struck by the plague, and he died by the plague that destroyed the city and many of those who were living there. Plutarch seems to believe that Pericles and the Athenians incited the war, scrambling to implement their hawkish tactics "with a sort of arrogance and a love of strife". Please select which sections you would like to print: Corrections? Pericles met the situation in part by extending a network of Athenian settlements throughout what may now be called the empire, thus strengthening Athenian control and providing new land for the growing Athenian population. The League was so named because its treasury was originally located on the island of the same name. These sources are not all ascertainable, but they certainly preserve an invaluable amount of fact and contemporary gossip, which is sometimes nearly as useful. In 447 BC Pericles engaged in his most admired excursion, the expulsion of barbarians from the Thracian peninsula of Gallipoli, to establish Athenian colonists in the region. How did the growth of Athenian power lead to war? Athenian women were dedicated to the care and upkeep of the family home. Both share several similarities, like the stature of their lineage, a rightful place in the Athenian annals of history, warfare and politics, the political clout they can muster, and as important socio-political figures to which many Athenian aspects were attributed to. His Alcmaeonid mother, Agariste, provided him with relationships of sharply diminishing political value and her family curse, a religious defilement that was occasionally used against him by his enemies. In the remainder of his oration, Pericles is engaged in a characterization of the essence of Athens. A correct assessment is vital for understanding Pericles, but explanations vary considerably; some argue that Pericles was merely forging a low-level political weapon for use against Cimon, who had a foreign mother. In 1994 at a meeting in indonesia, the united states reached an agreement with the pacific rim nations to, Why did peasants generally support Luther's religious ideas. A few days before Pericles’ birth, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, Agariste dreamed she bore a lion. Athens' influence began to dominate the other city-states of the Greek area. Pericles statesmanship has been defined in many ways. 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. Approaching 50, he began a relationship with Aspasia of Miletus. He soon left their political camp, probably on the question of relations with Persia, and took the then new path of legal prosecution as a political weapon. Circa 461 B.C., Pericles became the ruler of Athens. It was the custom at the time to honor the dead each year who had died defending their city-state, the city-state of Athens. Pericles Major Accomplishments How does a dictator become the leader of the country? Pericles was among its victims. The law also may have passed because of a general wish to restrict access to the benefits of office and public distributions, but there was never any disposition on the part of Athenians to restrict economic opportunities for foreigners—who served in the fleet, worked on public buildings, and had freedom of trade and investment, with the crucial, but normal, exception of land and houses. Pericles goes to great lengths to detail the glory and the esteem of the Athenian empire. The objective of this league was to ‘compensate themselves for losses by ravaging t… The Athenian historian quotes the stateman as saying “Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free” . About forty years later Pericles, with a statesman named Ephialtes, diminished the Areopagus, which was a council of corrupt aristocrats. Derives largely from two sources for democracy in the Athenian market, marriage impossible. 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