Pericles

Pericles

Pericles was born in Athens Greece in 495 B.C... He was the son of Xanthippus, who won the victory over the Persians at Mycale. His mother was Agariste, who was the niece of the great statesman Clisthenes. Pericles grew up with wealth and a well expanded education.

Some of his teachers were Daman, who taught him politics, Zeno who taught him argumentation, and by Anaxagoras who taught him nobility of purpose and character. The teacher that Pericles most admired and learned from was Anaxagoras.

Pericles first became popular as an opponent of the Areopagus. He was also a prosecutor against Cimon. These were two of the large events that allowed Pericles to become a great leader in Athens.

Cimon was a political rival of Pericles for many years. Cimon was a wealthy man who gained favor with the people by spending his own money on feeding, clothing and caring for those Athenians who needed assistance. To counter Cimon, Pericles spent public money in building projects. Pericles even was eventually able to have Cimon ostracized and banished from the city for a period of time. However, before his period of exile was up, Cimon returned to lead Athenians in a battle against Sparta. Unfortunately, some friends of Pericles had Cimon sent away and the battle went badly for the Athenians. At that point, Pericles was able to look past his own ambitions, and recalled Cimon so that Athens might be victorious. This move allowed Pericles to be adored and loved by all the people. It also gave him an extream amount of authority.

Pericles helped complete the evolution of democracy in Athens during 462-429 B.C. Pericles had been the leader of the democratic faction of Athenian politics since 462 BC. Ephialtes was the Athenian leader who had finally divested the Areopagus of all its power; Athens was now solely governed by the council and the democratic Assembly. Pericles quickly brought forward legislation that let anyone serve as the archon (one of the nine central leaders of the country) despite birth or wealth. The Assembly became the central power of the state. Consisting of all the free-born (no freed slaves) male citizens of Athens, the Assembly was given sole approval or veto power over every state decision. The Assembly was not a representative government, but instead consisted of every male citizen. In terms of numbers, this still was not a democratic state: women weren't included, nor were foreigners, slaves, or freed slaves. Pericles also changed the rules of citizenship: before the ascendancy of Pericles, anyone born of a single Athenian parent was an Athenian citizen; Pericles instituted laws which demanded that both parents be Athenian citizens. So, in reality, the great democracy of Periclean Athens was in reality only a very small minority of the people living in Athens. It was, however, the closest human culture has come to an unadulterated democracy.

The democratic Assembly was not able to appoint elected officials, but the assembly was however able to choose whoever they pleased when it came to public officials. In addition to this, the Assembly also served in the court of law during major cases. Any decision made in a court of law could be appealed to the Assembly where a court of free citizens would hear the case.

During the first Persian War, Sparta and Athens were allies. The relationship, however, began deteriorating when Sparta became increasingly alarmed with Athens expanding growth. The Spartans recommended to Athens that they stop the construction on their defense walls in the early 470's B.B., but Athenians had ignored the request, suspecting Sparta wanted Athens to be unprotected against Peloponnesian invasions of Attica. The relationship between Athens and Sparta remained friendly, but still tense.

After Athens made some ties with enemies from Sparta, Sparta became suspicious. Athens made an alliance with the Argos, who were a long-time enemy of Sparta and they also formed an alliance with Megara, which was the city which lay directly in the path of the route from Athens to the Peloponnesus, the southern part of Greece. After these alliances were made, Sparta became more and more suspicious, especially about the alliance with Megara and began a campaign against Athens. This campaign was also known as the first Peloponnesian War.

During this war, Athens was victorious. After three years of inactivity however, Cimon, who was exiled, returned and negotiated a five year peace treaty with Sparta. After the loss of the alliance with Athens, Argos was forced to make a thirty year peace treaty with Sparta.

After about fourteen years, the thirty year peace treaty was broken. Sparta's fears of Athens growing empire grew stronger and stronger and so Sparta declared war on Athens. It took six months after Sparta declared war for anything to occur. During the intervening months three Spartan embassies delivered ultimatums that the Athenians must agree to if they wanted peace.

The first ultimatum that Sparta demanded was that Athens drive out the curse of the goddess. This was a personal attack on Pericles because his mother's family had committed a sacrilege against Athena two centuries prior. The Athenians stood behind Pericles and voted to decline Sparta's first ultimatum.

The second ultimatum was for Athens to end its alliance with Megara. This was a reasonable request and