Pericles of Athens (47 page)

 
2.
In his bibliography, Dr. Azoulay lists several works addressed to a supposed “Periclean
Age” or to “Periclean Athens”—for example, Chêtelet 1982; Cloché 1949
;
Flacelière 1966; Hurwit 2004; and Samons II ed. 2007. I myself have contributed (“Pericles-Zeus:
a study in tyranny”) to a fairly recent such collection titled (in Greek)
The Democracy of Pericles in the 21st Century
, edited by Ch. Giallourides (Athens: I. Sideres, 2006). The publication of a “sourcebook
and reader” titled just
Pericles
by a leading U.S. press (University of California Press, 2009, ed. S. V. Tracy) is
symptomatic.

 
3.
Anglophone readers may wish to consult Louise Bruit Zaidman and P. Schmitt Pantel,
Religion in the Ancient Greek City
, ed. and trans. P. Cartledge (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992 and
repr.).

 
4.
Helen Roche,
Hitler’s German Children: The Ideal of Ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps,
1818
–
1920, and in National Socialist Elite Schools (the Napolas), 1933–1945
(Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2013).

I
NTRODUCTION

 
1.
“Prayer on the Acropolis,” in Renan 1929, 50.

 
2.
See later,
chapter 12
.

 
3.
Loraux 1993a.

 
4.
See, for example, Cloché 1949; Flacelière 1966; and Chêtelet 1982. In the Anglo-Saxon
world, Robinson 1959; and Samons II ed. 2007. In the Germanic world, Filleul 1874–1875;
and Schmidt 1877–1879.

 
5.
See Loraux 2011.

 
6.
See the remarks of Schmitt Pantel 2009, 204.

 
7.
Lahire 1999, 121–152.

 
8.
The date is probable but not certain. See the remarks of Lehmann 2008, 30 and 273.

 
9.
See later,
chapter 10
.

10.
See Keesling 2003, 193–195; Hölscher 1975, 191.

11.
See later,
chapter 2
.

12.
See Pelling 2002 and Schmitt Pantel 2009, 175–196 (“Plutarque, biographe et historien”).

13.
See Strasburger 1955, 1–25, here p. 3, who traces the idea to Eduard Meyer, Ulrich
von Wilamowitz, and Victor Ehrenberg.

14.
Histories
, 6.131. On this ambiguous dream, see later,
chapter 1
.

15.
See later,
chapter 1
and
chapter 4
. On Herodotus’s nuanced opinion of Pericles, see Schwartz 1969, 367–370, according
to whom the historian’s remark about illegitimate children among the Lycians incorporates
a slur against Pericles and Aspasia (at 1.173); cf. also Thomas 1989, 265–272.

16.
On Cratinus and Pericles, see McGlew 2002, 42–56, and Bakola 2010, 181–208.

17.
See later,
chapters 6
and
7
, and, more generally, Vickers 1997.

18.
Saetta Cottone 2005.

19.
See Geddes 2007, 110–138. Although his work is ostensibly apolitical, in truth it
reflects the social position of its author, Ion, who lived under an oligarchic government
in Chios and himself belonged to the elite, was critical of the democratic and patriotic
politics promoted by Pericles, and preferred Cimon, who was more in step with his
own pan-Hellenic political ideals.

20.
Banfi 2003, 46 ff.

21.
See Schmitt Pantel 2009, 12–13 and 197–205.

22.
That admiration of his was by no means without reservations, according to Foster
2010, 210–220. She suggests that Thucydides did indeed admire the
stratēgos
, but implicitly criticized his imperialist policy and his overconfidence in Athenian
military power. It is a view that is shared by Taylor 2010. She radicalizes that analysis
to the point of maintaining that Thucydides “implicitly censures Pericles” and the
Athenian imperial project itself (p. 1). But this “reading between the lines” is not
convincing: given that Thucydides openly criticizes democracy and the way that it
functions, there seems to be no reason for him to praise Pericles but at the same
time to slip in a covert negative message intended to be picked up by the “happy few”
capable of detecting it.

23.
See the remarks of Gribble 2006, 439.

24.
See Dodds 1959, 325–326, for references to “great men” by orators. See, in particular,
Isocrates,
Antidosis
, 111 and 234–235, and Lysias,
Against Nicomachus
(30), 28.

25.
Aubenque 1986, 53–60.

26.
Pericles
, 12.1. Cf. Plutarch,
Were the Athenians More Famous in War or in Peace?
, 348C and 351A.

27.
Aelius Aristides,
To Plato, In Defence of the Four
(3), 11–127, and, in particular, 20 (see also
Panathenaica
, 383–392). The speech was composed between 161 and 165 A.D. See Behr 1986, 460.

28.
Pausanias, 8.52.3. See the remarks of Pébarthe 2010a, 273–290.

29.
See later,
chapter 11
.

C
HAPTER
1. A
N
O
RDINARY
Y
OUNG
A
THENIAN
A
RISTOCRAT
?

 
1.
Aristotle,
Politics
, 4.4.1291b14–30.

 
2.
Callias I, who was a priest of Eleusis, is the only notable exception, for he also
promoted several decrees in the mid-fifth century and negotiated the peace
that bears his name, in 449. It was not until the defeat at Chaeronea in 338 B.C.
and the rise of the orator Lycurgus, a member of the Eteoboutadae (who held the priesthood
of Poseidon Erechtheus) that a member of a
genos
played an important political role. There is also another historiographical myth
that needs to be refuted: there is no attested link between the Philaid
genos
—which may or may not have existed—and the Cimonid family, the origin of which is
said to go back to Philaius (Herodotus, 6.35.1). On this subject, see Parker 1996,
316–317.

 
3.
Ps.-Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians
, 28.2.

 
4.
Historians of Greek religion do not agree about the roles of the Bouzygae: were they
a true priestly family (
genos
) or did they just exercise a religious function in the city? See Parker 1996, 287–288.
Whatever the case may be, their function concerned the earth’s fertility and the ritual
purity of the soil.

 
5.
Eupolis, fr. 103 K.-A., probably from his play,
The Demes
. On this subject, see Storey 2003, 135.

 
6.
See Bourriot 1976, 1270–1275.

 
7.
In Athens, the kinship system was bilateral, with a patrilinear bias. The importance
of the maternal branch was strengthened by the law that Pericles himself promoted
in 451. See later,
chapter 5
.

 
8.
Isocrates,
Concerning the Team of Horses
(16), 25.

 
9.
Plutarch is mistaken when he claims that Agariste was the legislator’s granddaughter
(
Pericles
, 3.1). It is a mistake that is sometimes repeated in certain modern works, such as
that of Kagan 1991, 68.

10.
According to Thucydides (1.126.10–11), Cylon himself escaped and only his followers
took up the position of suppliants at the altar on the Acropolis.

11.
See later,
chapter 8
.

12.
Herodotus, 5.59–61.

13.
See Gernet 1981, 289–302.

14.
Herodotus, 5.131. The historian furthermore suggests that Cleisthenes the Athenian
introduced his reforms modeling himself on his grandfather, Cleisthenes of Sicyon,
as if his action resembled that of a tyrant (5.65).

15.
IG
I
³
1031 = ML 6C = Fornara 23C. See Pébarthe 2005. Was it in order to wipe out the memory
of his ancestor’s collaboration that Pericles stressed the action of the tyrannicides
in 514, rather than the reforms introduced by Cleisthenes? He certainly seems to be
the one who proposed that the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton should thenceforth
live at the expense of the city in the Prytaneum, to commemorate the liberating act
of their ancestors. Cf.
IG
I
³
131 (between 440 and 432 B.C.), where the proposal is made by a certain “… ikles”
(unfortunately, the inscription is mutilated), which many historians believe to be
part of the
stratēgos
’s name, on the strength of Wade-Gery 1932–1933, 123–125.

16.
Herodotus, 6.115.

17.
On this matter, see Williams 1980.

18.
Herodotus, 5.92.3.

19.
The fact that Pericles physically resembled Pisistratus, the founder of tyranny in
Athens, cannot have favored the young man’s reputation (Plutarch,
Pericles
, 7.1). On this matter, see later,
chapter 10
.

20.
Plutarch,
Pericles
, 16.2–3.

21.
See
Pericles
, 6.2 and 16.5. See later,
chapter 5
.

22.
Plutarch,
Pericles
, 33.2. See later,
chapter 6
.

23.
Thucydides, 2.13.1.

24.
See, for example, Kagan 1991, 39.

25.
On the number of
liturgists
in Athens, see Gabrielsen 1994. The group of men liable for liturgies numbered around
1,000 to 1,200 individuals. Demosthenes’ law of 340 was not designed to reduce their
number to 300, but simply to make sure that most of the burden fell upon the 300 Athenians
who were the most wealthy.

26.
Balot 2001a, 125–126.

27.
Herodotus, 6.125.5.

28.
Author unknown [
adespota
], fr. 403 Edmonds.

29.
Plutarch,
Pericles
, 8.4. On this, see Banfi 2003, 57–58.

30.
See for example, Aristophanes,
Clouds
, 1015–1019.

31.
Isocrates,
Antidosis
(15), 235: in defense of the role of the sophists, the orator pointed out that “Pericles
was the pupil of two sophists, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and Damon, who was considered
the wisest of the citizens in his day.”

32.
Phaedrus
, 269e–270a. See later,
chapter 6
.

33.
The same goes for the relations between Pericles and Zeno of Elea, who is mentioned
only by Plutarch,
Pericles
, 4.3. See later,
chapter 6
.

34.
According to Plato (
Republic
, 400c), he also had Socrates as a pupil.

35.
Plato the comic poet, fr. 207 K.-A.

36.
Wallace 2004a.

37.
Pericles
, 4.2. See the doubts expressed by Raaflaub 2003, 317–331, and later,
chapter 6
.

38.
Plutarch,
Cimon
, 4.4.

39.
See Lysias,
The Defence of an Anonymous Man Accused of Corruption
(21), 1 (3,000 drachmas for a tragic
khorēgia
in 410), and Lysias,
On the Goods of Aristophanes
(19), 29 and 42 (5,000 drachmas for a tragic
khorēgia
in 392).

40.
Wilson 2000, 133–134.

41.
Other spectacular liturgies were undertaken by very young citizens: see Demosthenes,
On the Crown
(18), 256–267; Lysias,
The Defence of an Anonymous Man Accused of Corruption
(21), 1 (a tragic
khorēgia
at the age of 18).

42.
Constitution of the Athenians
, 56.2. On the matching of poets to
khorēgoi
, see Antiphon,
On the Choreutes
(6), 11, for the Thargelia (but the procedure was probably similar for the Dionysia).

43.
After that first success, Aeschylus won five victories in as many competitions. See
Podlecki 1966, 1–7, on Aeschylus’s career.

44.
Pericles
, 7.1. Schmitt Pantel 2009, 35.

45.
See the doubts expressed by Fornara and Samons II 1991, 158–159.

46.
Plutarch,
Cimon
, 14.3–4, recording the testimony of Stesimbrotus of Thasos.

47.
This means not that more experienced politicians never attacked their enemies, but
rather that they divided their energies between attack and defense. Lycurgus of Athens,
who remained an accuser throughout his career, was in this respect a notable exception.
On this subject, see Azoulay 2011, 192–204.

48.
See Osborne 1990, 83–102; and Christ 1998.

49.
Herodotus, 6.104.

50.
Herodotus, 6.136. One
ostrakon
describes Xanthippus as
alitērios
, “accursed,” a term that probably alludes to the curse laid upon his family-in-law:
see Duplouy 2006, 93. However, for a different view, see Valdes Guia 2009, 313–314
(who regards Xanthippus as a member of the Bouzygae
genos
).

51.
See Loraux 2001, 71–75.

52.
Diodorus Siculus,
Library of History
, 11.77.6. See also Antiphon,
On the Murder of Herodes
, 68; Ps.-Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians
, 25.4; Plutarch,
Pericles
, 10.8. On the murder of Ephialtes as an aborted “great cause,” see the remarks of
Payen 2007a, 30–31.

53.
Idomeneus of Lampsacus,
On the Demagogues, FGrHist
338 F 8 (= Plutarch,
Pericles
, 10.6).

54.
On this matter, see Fornara and Samons II 1991, 27–28.