The First Citizen of Athens
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At the public funeral after the first year of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles praised Athens and asked the living to match the courage of its dead. The surviving oration comes through Thucydides, whose method allowed reconstruction rather than verbatim reporting. Pericles held an annually elected generalship, but his influence reached far beyond military command: democratic reforms, imperial tribute, and the Acropolis building programme all shaped the city he led.
“For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.”
c. 495–429 BC
Born into the Alcmaeonid aristocracy of Athens — his mother Agariste was the niece of the reformer Cleisthenes. Died of the plague that devastated Athens during the third year of the Peloponnesian War. Sixty-six years that shaped Western civilisation.
~30 years
Pericles became influential during the 460s and remained central to Athenian politics until his death in 429 BC. Plutarch describes fifteen successive generalships after his main rival’s ostracism; annual election and accountability remained part of the office.
447–432 BC
Championed the Acropolis building programme, centred on the Parthenon, designed by Ictinus and Callicrates with sculptural work led by Phidias. Its financing and the use of allied revenue were subjects of political dispute.
150–330
At its height, the Delian League — transformed under Pericles from a voluntary alliance into an Athenian empire — comprised between 150 and 330 tribute-paying states across the Aegean, generating roughly 600 talents of silver per year.
Athenian statesman, orator, patron of the arts, architect of the Golden Age of Athens
Defining Events
The Building of the Parthenon
Pericles launched the most ambitious building programme in Greek history — the reconstruction of the Acropolis, devastated by the Persians in 480 BC. The centrepiece was the Parthenon, a temple to Athena Parthenos housing a twelve-metre chryselephantine statue by Phidias. The project employed thousands of craftsmen — stonemasons, sculptors, painters, carpenters, bronzeworkers — and transformed Athens into the most beautiful city in the ancient world. Critics accused Pericles of using allied tribute to 'dress Athens up like a harlot.' He replied that Athens owed nothing so long as it defended its allies — and that the buildings would be its glory for eternity.
The Funeral Oration
After the first campaigning season, Pericles delivered the funeral oration preserved in Book II of Thucydides’ History. It praises civic participation, openness, and courage within a city that excluded women, enslaved people, and resident foreigners from political citizenship. Later readers have compared it with other civic funeral speeches, including Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
The Plague of Athens
In the second year of the war, as the population of Attica crowded behind the Long Walls, a devastating plague swept through Athens. Thucydides, who survived it, described the symptoms in clinical detail — fever, inflammation, vomiting, ulceration, unquenchable thirst. The disease killed an estimated quarter to a third of the population, including Pericles' sister, both his legitimate sons Xanthippus and Paralus, and finally Pericles himself in the autumn of 429 BC. Modern scholars have proposed typhoid fever, smallpox, viral haemorrhagic fever, and Ebola as possible identifications. The plague shattered Athenian morale and marked the beginning of the end of the city's golden age.
Timeline
Born into Athenian Aristocracy
Pericles is born into two of Athens' most prominent families. His father Xanthippus commanded the Greek fleet at the Battle of Mycale in 479 BC. His mother Agariste was the niece of Cleisthenes, the reformer who established Athenian democracy in 508 BC. The Alcmaeonid clan was wealthy, ambitious, and reputedly cursed — an old blood-guilt from the Cylonian affair that political enemies would invoke for generations.
First Public Act — Funding Aeschylus
At roughly twenty-three years old, Pericles serves as choregos (theatrical sponsor) for Aeschylus' production of The Persians — a drama celebrating Athens' victory at Salamis, where Pericles' own father had fought. The choregic system required wealthy citizens to fund theatrical productions; Pericles' choice of play was a political statement, aligning himself with the democratic, naval faction against aristocratic conservatives.
The Democratic Revolution
Pericles joins Ephialtes in a radical reform of the Athenian constitution, stripping the aristocratic Areopagus council of its political powers and transferring them to the democratic Assembly, the Council of Five Hundred, and the popular courts. In 461 BC Ephialtes is assassinated — Pericles, now roughly thirty-four, inherits the leadership of the democratic faction and begins his three-decade dominance of Athenian politics.
Treasury Moved to Athens
The treasury of the Delian League — the anti-Persian alliance founded after the Battle of Plataea — is transferred from the island of Delos to the Acropolis of Athens. What had been a voluntary alliance of equals begins its transformation into an Athenian empire. The tribute, roughly 460 talents per year, will fund Pericles' building programme and Athenian naval supremacy.
The Acropolis Rebuilt
Pericles commissions the reconstruction of the Acropolis, destroyed by Xerxes' army in 480 BC. The Parthenon (447–432 BC), the Propylaea (437–432 BC), and later the Erechtheion and Temple of Athena Nike transform the sacred rock into the most magnificent architectural ensemble in the Greek world. Phidias oversees the sculptural programme, including the colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos — over twelve metres tall, sheathed in gold and ivory.
Thucydides Son of Melesias Ostracised
Pericles' principal political rival, Thucydides son of Melesias (not the historian), is ostracised by popular vote after opposing the use of Delian League funds for Athenian building projects. With his removal, Pericles faces no serious opposition. Plutarch writes that from this point on, 'Pericles was the foremost man in Athens, and held the state in his hands.'
The Revolt of Samos
The island of Samos revolts against Athenian control. Pericles personally commands the naval expedition that besieges and recaptures the island after nine months of fighting. The Samian War demonstrates both the military power of the Athenian empire and the ruthlessness with which Pericles would enforce it. Samos is stripped of its fleet and forced to pay war indemnities.
The Peloponnesian War Begins
War breaks out between Athens and Sparta — the two great power blocs of the Greek world. Pericles' strategy is to avoid pitched land battle against Sparta's superior hoplites, withdraw the population behind the Long Walls connecting Athens to Piraeus, and rely on Athenian naval supremacy to strike at Spartan allies by sea. The strategy is brilliant but demands extraordinary discipline — and it concentrates the population in conditions perfect for epidemic disease.
Key Figures
Aspasia of Miletus
Aspasia of Miletus was Pericles’ companion and the mother of Pericles the Younger. Comedy and Socratic literature preserve sharply different portraits of her. Plutarch associates her with rhetorical skill and tells of an impiety prosecution ending in acquittal. These accounts are evidence for her reputation, without securely documenting every conversation or trial detail.
Phidias
Phidias was the greatest sculptor of the ancient world and Pericles' closest collaborator on the Acropolis project. He created the colossal chryselephantine statues of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon and Zeus at Olympia — the latter counted among the Seven Wonders. Pericles appointed him general superintendent of the building programme, giving him oversight of the entire sculptural scheme. Political enemies attacked Pericles through Phidias, charging the sculptor with embezzlement and impiety — he allegedly included portraits of himself and Pericles on Athena's shield. Phidias was convicted and died in prison or exile, a casualty of the political warfare that constantly surrounded Pericles.
The Legacy of Pericles
Thucydides admired Pericles’ ability to lead the Assembly while describing Athens as a democracy in name and the rule of its first man in practice. That tension remains central to his legacy: participation at home coexisted with coercion abroad and exclusion within the city.
The Parthenon and the Funeral Oration still invite arguments about beauty, power, and civic obligation. The ePub explores those choices through an imagined first-person voice, drawing on contemporary history and later traditions of differing reliability.
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Read the story of Pericles — 8 chapters of historical narrative.
Dramatised first-person narrative; not an autobiography.