Pericles of Athens (27 page)

However, there is no evidence to confirm the veracity of such an episode, which is
related in this form only in the works of later authors.
⁶⁷
Besides, Plutarch makes a factual error in his account: Phidias did not die in prison
for, soon after 438, he went off to Elis to sculpt a gigantic statue of Zeus at Olympia.
⁶⁸
From there, it is but a step to consign the entire anecdote to the gallery of Plutarchian
fantasies. However, it is a step that we should forbear to take. Not only are the
sculptor’s misfortunes mentioned by several fifth-century and fourth-century sources,
⁶⁹
but Plutarch does appear to be speaking from some experience. It is possible that
during his stay in Athens, he had himself spotted the portraits sculpted on the goddess’s
shield.
⁷⁰
Moreover, it seems that this was not the only misdemeanor of which the sculptor was
accused: it was said that he had diverted for his own use some of the gold and ivory
allotted for the construction of the statue of Athena Parthenos.
⁷¹

Even if we accept that those accusations have some historical basis, it was certainly
not impiety that fueled the Athenians’ indignation. The statue of Athena was provided
with no attested sacrifices, no altar, no priest, and it had no ritual role. Rather,
it was a political monument erected to the glory of Athens. What Phidias was accused
of was, first, of having ignored the ban on representations of individuals on public
Athenian monuments—in effect, of manifest hubris, not impiety (
asebeia
)—and, second, of having embezzled public funds.

The legal attacks against Aspasia, Pericles’ partner, are even more doubtful. According
to Plutarch, the sole source to mention this affair, this Milesian woman was dragged
before the courts on charges of impiety, prompting Pericles to abandon his usual reserve
and to move the jurors’ hearts with his tears. Far from being historically attested,
the whole story is probably the fruit of a late reconstruction that misconstrues the
accusations made on the comic stage as an actual lawsuit against impiety.
⁷²

Are we on any firmer ground with the lawsuit brought against Pericles’ teacher, Anaxagoras?
That is far from certain. He had been living in Athens for many years and is said
to have been condemned for impiety at a date that is uncertain—possibly 432—and this
prompted him to flee to Lampsacus, his home city, in northern Asia Minor, where he
is said to have lived until his death.
⁷³
However, the whole affair remains very unclear. The Hellenistic sources, recorded
by Diogenes Laertius (2.12), in any case produce two different versions of the matter.
In one, it is the demagogue Cleon who prosecuted him for impiety; in the other, it
is Thucydides, Pericles’ opponent, ostracized in 443, who accuses him of collaboration
with the Persians.

Nor are these the only gray areas surrounding this supposed trial. On what legal basis
could Anaxagoras have been found guilty? According to Plutarch, a certain Diopeithes
proposed “a bill providing for the public impeachment of such as did not believe in
gods [
ta theia
] or who taught doctrines regarding the heavens.”
⁷⁴
The suggestion, then, is that Diopeithes, an influential seer, was one of the zealous
figures who clung to traditional piety and was shocked by Anaxagoras’s studies on
the heavenly bodies and phenomena. For did not Pericles’ friend believe that the sun
was an incandescent mass—not a deity—and did he not refuse to believe that eclipses
were divine portents
⁷⁵
?

Yet Plutarch is the only one to mention this strange decree, the authenticity of which
is such a bone of contention for historians.
⁷⁶
Without entering into this debate that is so full of pitfalls, we can perhaps try
to rephrase the question. To be sure, attacks on “naturalists” (
phusikoi
) did make a comeback in the 430s,
⁷⁷
for as the Spartan threat became more pressing, the Athenians were clearly keen to
make sure that the gods were on their side. But does this imply that these critics
resorted to a legal solution? There is no evidence to suggest that it does. What is
certain, however, is that the comic poets were busy attacking not only the sophists
and “nebulous chatterboxes” (
meteōroleskhai
), but any individuals who in some way drew attention to themselves in the city. In
this respect, the seer Diopeithes was not spared any more than Anaxagoras was; the
comic poets portrayed him as an oracular expert of doubtful repute, or even as a dangerous
visionary.
⁷⁸
Perhaps, after all, that is the main lesson to be learned here: in the 430s, all
forms of individual distinction became suspect.

Thus, none of the trials for impiety involving those close to Pericles is attested
with certainty. So it is hard to detect any symptoms of a democracy given to persecution
let alone terrorism and bent on punishing the slightest religious deviation. If authoritarianism
did become stricter, it probably did so after Pericles’ death. The plague that carried
off the
stratēgos
along with so many of his fellow-citizens did have a profound effect on the Athenians
and their beliefs. According to Thucydides, the epidemic even drove men into nihilism
and despair, as all their invocations to the gods remained unanswered: “The sanctuaries
too, in which they had quartered themselves, were full of the corpses of those who
had died in them; for the calamity which weighed upon them was so overpowering that
men, not knowing what was to become of them, became careless of all law, sacred as
well as profane. And the customs which they had hitherto observed regarding burial
were all thrown into confusion, and they buried their dead, each one as he could.”
⁷⁹
Relations between men and the gods were lastingly undermined, as is testified by
the mutilation of the Hermai and the profanation of the Mysteries of Eleusis, in 416/5.
Readers of Thucydides will not be surprised to learn that the death of the
stratēgos
constituted a definite break; according to the historian, with the disappearance
of the
stratēgos
, the life of the whole community underwent a change for the worse.

CHAPTER 9

After Pericles: The Decline of Athens?

I
n
The Peloponnesian War
, Thucydides treats the death of Pericles as a turning point in the history of Athens.
He represents Pericles’ “reign” as a clear dividing line between a community led by
a virtuous elite and a democratic city abandoned to the hands of
kakoi
—the despicable demagogues. Once Plutarch had put the finishing touches to it, this
Manichean vision was often readopted by modern historiography, without the slightest
criticism.
¹
Yet the ancient sources are by no means unanimous on the subject. Some ancient authors
rejected the historiographical model that represents a rise up to Pericles, followed
by a fall after the death of the
stratēgos.
The disciples of Socrates, for instance, had no hesitation in criticizing even Pericles’
“reign.” In Plato’s view, Pericles was certainly no model. He proved himself incapable
not only of raising his own children but also of educating the Athenian people. This
showed that the
stratēgos
was at least partly responsible for the decadence which, according to the philosopher,
had characterized the city right from the start. In Plato’s view, democracy was a
regime that was fundamentally vitiated and the personalities of its leaders were of
little account; in the last analysis, it was the people, the true tyrant, who forced
its leaders to do as it wished.

When stripped of their polemical thrust, Plato’s analyses lead one to take a different
view of the death of Pericles within the history of Athens. Rather than regarding
it as a sudden break—whether for better or for worse—Plato’s thinking encourages us
to replace the life of Pericles within a great upheaval that encompasses and exceeds
it—namely, the taming of the members of the elite at the hands of the Athenian people.

T
HE
D
EATH OF
P
ERICLES AND THE
R
ISE OF THE
D
EMAGOGUES

A Change in the Political Players?

Thucydides and Pseudo-Aristotle, each in his own way, detected a break in the political
life of Athens. In the funerary appreciation of the dead leader
that he composed, Thucydides drew a radical contrast between Pericles and his successors:
“For so long as he presided over the affairs of the state in time of peace he pursued
a moderate policy and kept the city in safety, and it was under him that Athens reached
the height of her greatness … But the successors of Pericles, being more
on an equality
[
isoi
]
with one another
and yet striving each to be first, were ready to surrender to the people even the
conduct of public affairs to suit their whims.”
²
The author of the
Constitution of
the Athenians
shares that view and interprets the history of the city in a fashion that unfolds
in the same way: “So long, then, as Pericles held the leadership of the people [
dēmos
], the affairs of the state went better, but when Pericles was dead, they became much
worse. For the people now, for the first time, adopted a head [
prostatēs
] who was not in good repute with the respectable men [
epieikeis
] whereas in former periods these always continued to lead the people [
dēmagōgein
].”
³

Over and above differences in details,
⁴
the two authors are in agreement on a twofold diagnosis: first, structurally speaking,
the leaders had dominated politics in Athens and the people were merely the puppets
of those who led them; second, at a circumstantial level, both reckon that Pericles’
death marked a decisive turning point. When the leaders of the
dēmos
came to resemble those whom they led and were no better than the latter, decadence
was inevitable. The outcome of the Peloponnesian War—so terribly damaging to Athens—proved
them right.

Let us make a detailed study of the argument set out in
The Constitution of the Athenians
. Up until the death of Pericles, the people’s leaders belonged to the group of the
“well-born” (
eupatrides
), the respectable men (
epieikeis
); the leaders of the
dēmos
all belonged to the traditional Athenian elite, whose fortunes were based on the
possession and exploitation of land. The death of Pericles, it is claimed, opened
the door to “demagogues,” whose wealth was founded on craft activities: Cleon owned
a tannery, Hyperbolus was a producer of lamps, and Cleophon made lyres. It was a switch
from wealthy people to nobodies. This sociological evolution resulted in consequences
that were catastrophic for the city. The new politicians corrupted the people not
only symbolically, by their uncouth language and their undisciplined way of addressing
the Assembly,
⁵
but also materially, by introducing new civic wages for the poorest citizens.
⁶

If one believes Thucydides or the Aristotelian school, Pericles’ death drew a line
separating two distinct moments in Athenian political life: whereas the
stratēgos
had led the city to its greatest achievements, thanks to his wisdom and prudence
(
phronēsis
),
⁷
the new loutish leaders had led Athens to disaster. There was a definite, even caricatural
contrast between a carefully controlled
dēmos
, dominated by a Pericles who set a brake on the people’s desires, and a
dēmos
beyond control, constantly flattered by Cleon and his successors.

That Manichean representation was not defended solely by the opponents of radical
democracy, either writing in exile—as was Thucydides
—
or sheltered by the wall of the Lyceum—as was the author of the
Constitution of the Athenians
. It was reproduced in many of the comedies destined to be staged before the Athenians
en masse. In the last third of the fifth century, the poet Eupolis was already contrasting
the
stratēgoi
of the past to the current leaders in a striking mirror image: “And yet, despite
the abundance of the subject-matter, I do not know what to say, so distressed am I
by the spectacle of public life today. We, the older ones, used not to live like this.
In the first place, in our day, the city had
stratēgoi
who came from the greatest houses [
oikion
] and were the first in both wealth and birth. We used to invoke them as though they
were gods and indeed that is what they were. … But today, if we have to go to war,
we elect as our
stratēgoi
polluted men [
katharmata
].”
⁸
This grandiloquent paean of praise for the past certainly testifies to the disarray
that some citizens felt, faced with the eruption of “nouveaux riches,” the
neoploutoi
,
⁹
onto the Athenian political stage.

A similar idealization of the past appears in Aristophanes. Although he treated Pericles
badly in his
Peace
, staged in 422/1 B.C., this comic poet changed his tune in
The Frogs
, in 405 B.C., in which he had his character “Aeschylus” pronounce the following revealing
tirade (1463–1465): “they [should] count the enemy’s soil their own, / And theirs
the enemy’s: and know that ships /Are their true wealth, their so-called wealth delusion.”

This passage, placed right at the end of the play in a particularly strategic position,
reflects a new—and positive—view of the Periclean defensive system that consisted
in placing all the city’s hopes in the fleet, leaving the civic territory in the hands
of the enemy. At this time, when the city was suffering one defeat after another both
on land and at sea, Pericles was represented as the very embodiment of a past when
Athens had been all-powerful.