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Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Transcript of PBS Video -­‐ The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Part 2 -­‐ The Golden Age 0:00 – Episode Introduction Greece. The year 490 BC. Here a revolution has begun that will change the world. In a moment of chaos and anarchy, the people of a tiny state named Athens have seized control of their city, and established democracy for the first time in history. But now this tiny state will face a greater challenge. Athens will be pitted against the greatest power of the day, the tyrannical Persian Empire. In a contest spread across land and sea, that will last over a decade, Athenian democracy will be tested in the crucible of war. This is the story of an extraordinary moment in history, and of two men who will change the course of civilization. Themistocles, the military genius of the ancient world. And Pericles, a visionary whose legacy still shapes the world today. This is the story of the Greeks. 1:45 – The Battle of Marathon, 490 BC 490 BC. A lone figure runs across the mountainous terrain of Greece. His name is Pheidippides, citizen of a tiny democracy named Athens. On this day, Pheidippides will make one of the most astonishing athletic feats in history, the inspiration for our modern marathon. But Pheidippides’ quest is not for glory, but survival. His homeland is about to be conquered by the mighty Persian Empire. In the early fifth century BC, the Persians were the greatest power on the world stage. Their vast empire stretched from India in the east, to Turkey in the west. Now, out on their western frontier, the tiny state of democratic Athens was gaining power. This was a threat the Persians would have to destroy. The Persians lived in a culture of unbending tyranny. At the head of their empire sat Darius, known to the Greeks only as The Great King. Suppliants had to cover their mouths in his presence just to avoid tainting the air he breathed. For Pheidippides and the democratic Athenians, conquest by Darius and the Persians would mean the destruction of their entire way of life. Barry Strauss: “There is a huge cultural difference between the Greeks and the Persians. The Greeks are a people who emphasize freedom. The Persians would put far more emphasis on obedience. It is a struggle between freedom and slavery.” The Persian force landed at a sandy bay called Marathon, just 26 miles from Athens. News of the invasion spread through the streets like wildfire. This was a city without a standing army. Every male citizen would have to come to defense of his state. The poorer citizens have spears, stakes, bows and arrows, whatever weapons they can find. But the heart of the Athenian force would be the hoplites, men who could afford heavy bronze armor, a shield, a spear, a sword. The Athenians would field a small but determined force. Victor David Hanson: “That’s probably the first time in the history of the Athenian state that the entire population had been mustered, and for them to field 10,000 hoplites, out of a citizenry that might have been only 20 or 30,000, is a level of involvement that’s astounding.” But as they faced the Persians on the battlefield, the Athenians held out little hope of victory. They were outnumbered by two to one. Pheidippides’ desperate mission was to run for help from one of PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 11 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Athens’ local rivals, the Greek state of Sparta. Even as he ran, Pheidippides must have imagined the horror that his fellow Athenians now faced. Barry Strauss: “You’re dodging spears from men in your front, and your men behind. You probably couldn’t see or hear. All you would feel would be pressure. You wouldn’t see the sword plunge that took one of your testicles off. You would see the spear thrust that took your head off. You would have no idea what was going on, just the momentum that carried you ahead. All that you would be aware of is that you had to push forward and keep stabbing and keep on your feet, and you would hope that everybody else would do that.” Pheidippides’ run was to become the stuff of legend. Fired by the terror that his fellow citizens were being slaughtered, he ran 140 miles in just two days. But Pheidippides’ quest would end in failure. Help would be refused. He was left only with the knowledge that his fellow Athenians would have to fight alone. Pheidippides could never have imagined that the Greeks would in fact have won a glorious victory. The Athenians had rushed at their foe in a headlong charge. And the Persians had scattered in the face of their assault. The Athenians slaughtered over 6,00o Persians in one fateful day. The world’s first democracy had survived its first great test. Victor Davis Hanson: “Every Athenian knew that he had voted to fight and that this reflected the majority vote of the citizens, and that this was not true of the Persians. Whatever you want to say about democracy, it fields the most patriotic , enthusiastic and often large armies.” 9:50 – Themistocles and the Construction of the Athenian Fleet The Athenians returned to their city to celebrate their victory. But amongst them was one for whom the war with Persia had only just begun, an Athenian general named Themistocles. Themistocles had fought on the battlefield at Marathon. He was typical of a new generation of Athenian leaders, a man who had risen to power through democracy. Barry Strauss: “Themistocles is a fascinating character, very much an example of the effect of democracy in Athens. It’s relatively clear that he doesn’t come from the inner circle of the landed aristocracy that traditionally ruled in Athens.” Tony Podlecki: “There were stories told about his feeling rather touchy about the fact that he hadn’t had a traditional aristocratic upbringing, for example, in music and poetry, and that might have even given him a spur to show that he could do as well as someone would had gone to all the right schools, as it were.” Themistocles’ opinion of his common origins was blunt and straightforward: “I may not know how to play the lyre of flute, but I do know how to make a city great.” Themistocles had learned the skills of leadership here, the democratic assembly of Athens. Here, any Athenian could stand before his fellow citizens and try to convince them to follow his leadership. From this very podium, Themistocles would now show himself to be one of history’s greatest leaders, the savior of his city. For Themistocles alone recognized that the Persians might still be a danger, and that next time victory for the Athenians might not prove so easy. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 12 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Tony Podlecki: “Themistocles realized that the Persians, if they came again, it would be in a way that made sure that they weren’t going to be defeated by land again. There was no way that the Athenians could rely on traditional hoplite fighting techniques.” Themistocles began to form a bold new strategy, employing the most advanced weapon of the day, the trireme. Triremes had been developed by the Greek state of Corinth, the ancient world’s finest shipbuilders. Stacking 170 oarsmen on three levels, their combination of light weight and raw power gave them astonishing and maneuverability. There was nothing else like them on the water. Barry Strauss: “In contemporary terms, a trireme is a missile. The object of a trireme is to ram the enemy ship. It is a very narrow, very light, very sleek, very fast weapon.” But these triremes were also exceedingly expensive. Themistocles’ vision of a vast Athenian navy might never have come to pass if it had not been for one stroke of luck. In the year 483 BC, the Athenians discovered a great vein of silver in their territory, worth a hundred talents, a vast amount in the ancient world. The Athenians wanted to divide these new found riches among themselves. But then Themistocles stood up in the Assembly. He wanted to spend the money on ships. But he also knew that this would be a hard proposal to sell. And so Themistocles played a complex bluff. Barry Strauss: “His argument is not that the money should be used to build a fleet against Persia. But rather it should be used to build a fleet against Athens’ local rival, the Greek city-­‐state of Aegina. The reason Themistocles does this is that he knew it would simply be too upsetting to remind people of the Persian threat. It’s a difficult argument to make, and a tribute to his political skills that he’s able to do it.” Themistocles convinced the Athenians to build the greatest naval force in Greece. And not a moment too soon. 15:20 – The Persian Invasion and Themistocles’ Strategy The great Persian king Darius died in 486 BC, and his son Xerxes assumed his father’s throne. Xerxes’ first action was to vow vengeance for his father’s defeat at the hands of the Athenians. Xerxes: “On my father’s behalf, and on behalf of all my subjects, I will not rest until I have taken Athens and burnt it to the ground.” Barry Strauss: “As an imperial power, the Persians cannot allow regional states like this to beat them with impunity.” Xerxes began to gather his forces. He conscripted troops from every corner of his empire. Arabians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, as well as Persians. Rumors began to leak back to Athens, that Xerxes’ army numbered nearly two million men, that it was the greatest force the world had ever seen, that soon it would be ready to march. And then finally in the spring of 480 BC, news reached Athens: the Persian army had set out for Greece. History records that Xerxes’ troops drank rivers dry, trampled fields to the raw earth, ravaging the land as they marched on toward Greece. Xerxes was confident of victory: “We PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 13 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” shall so extend the empire of Persia that its boundaries will be god’s own sky, so that the sun will not look on any land that is not ours.” When the Greeks realized that the Persians were invading again, terror gripped the whole country. For the Athenians, who knew that they would be Xerxes’ first target, it seemed that this could only be the end. As panic gripped the city, they turned to desperately to their gods. They sent a messenger to the oracle to find out their fate. Here, high in the Greek mountains can still be found the site of Delphi, the most famous of the Greek oracles. Built around a vast chasm in the mountain from which a sacred spring still flows. Here the Greeks would come to discover their future. They would ask questions of the Pythia, the mysterious priestess who spoke with a voice of the god Apollo. Helen King: “People came from all over the Greek world to consult Delphi, and sometimes came from outside the Greek world as well. It was considered that the center of the universe, the omphalos, the navel stone of the whole world was at Delphi. People asked questions about their private life, which are just the sort of questions people want answers to now.” Archaeologists have discovered copies of the questions asked of these ancient oracles: “Has Aristos stolen the wool from the mattress?” “Hermion asks, ‘What should I do to have useful children?’” But as the Athenians walked up this path two and half thousand years ago, there question was simple and grave: What could they do to save themselves? The oracle’s response could not have been more negative: “Why sit you, doomed ones? Fly to the end of the earth. All is ruin, for fire and the headlong god of war shall bring you low.” When this message came back to Athens, the democratic assembly dissolved into uproar. It seemed that even the gods had deserted them. But Themistocles refused to panic. He had spent every day since the battle of Marathon waiting for this moment. He sent the envoys back to Delphi for a second prophecy. “Nowhere else will be taken. Zeus grants that the wooden wall only shall not fail.” Argument raged as what this wooden wall could be. Some said that it meant the stronghold at the center of Athens, the Acropolis, but Themistocles had a different idea. Tony Podlecki: “He read the oracle and he understood that it had a different interpretation. He said the ships are the wooden barricade which are going to be the key to our success.” Themistocles’ plan was daring. Avoid a conflict on land, and fight the Persians at sea. He ordered the evacuation of Athens for the first time in her history. This order for evacuation, carved into a stone tablet for public display, is still preserved, discovered in the back of a Greek coffeehouse: “The Athenians shall send their children and wives to the village of Troezen. All the men should embark on the two hundred ships that have been prepared to fight the barbarian.” Themistocles ordered that his fleet of triremes should gather at Salamis, a tiny island off the Athenian coast. Barry Strauss: “Themistocles’ strategy is remarkable, not only because it is innovative and because it is bold, but because it requires an extraordinary self-­‐sacrifice on the part of the Athenian people. He wants every man, woman and child to leave their homes and possessions and to go into exile.” 23:00 – The Battle of Salamis, 480 BC With Athens abandoned, Xerxes’ mighty force entered the city. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 14 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Barry Strauss: “The Persians march in and go onto the Athenian Acropolis, the symbol of Athens. And they burn it. They burn the temples to the ground—then you can see the smoke rising from Salamis. This would have been a devastating sight, and a humiliating one. They would have seen their country occupied by a fearsome foreign invader. Surely they would have wondered if they would ever be able to go home again.” As night fell, Themistocles met the leaders of the other Greek city-­‐states on the island of Salamis. They had also assembled their much smaller fleets here. Their scouts reported back: the Persians now no longer held Athens, but had also gathered a mighty fleet four times the size of the Greek forces. But Themistocles’ plans were laid. Barry Strauss: “Themistocles sticks to his guns and his plan is to defeat the Persians at sea. He wants to fight in this narrow body of water between the island of Salamis and the Athenian mainland. The trick is going to be to get the enemy to fight there, because the Persians aren’t stupid.” Themistocles sent his servant to Xerxes with a seemingly traitorous message: “The Greeks are afraid, and are planning to slip away. They are squabbling with each other, and will offer no opposition, You have at this moment an opportunity of unparalleled success.” So eager was Xerxes for a crushing victory, he was happy to believe Themistocles’ ploy. Barry Strauss: “Xerxes marshals his admirals, and they embark, and they spend the night rowing. They sent a contingent along the eastern defile, the strait there. They try to block up the straits. Only as the dawn rose did the Persians realize the true nature of Themistocles’ plan. They discovered the Greeks not in disarray, but arranged in a battle line across the narrows in front of them. The Persian fleet had been lured so far up the straits that it had no room to maneuver. Powerful Greek triremes bore down on them without mercy. The Greek playwright Aeschylus took part in the battle and lived to tell the tale. “We heard from every part this voice of exultation. ‘Advance, ye sons of Greece. From slavery save your country. Save your wives, your children save. This day the common cause of all demands your valor.’” The Greek forces smashed into the cornered Persian fleet. Xerxes himself watched the carnage from his golden throne placed on the shore. At the end of the battle, the Persians had lost two hundred ships. For the Greeks it was a stunning and conclusive victory. Barry Strauss: “Victory at Salamis is tremendously important for the Greeks and the Athenians. It breaks the Persian navy. The Persians can no longer guarantee that they can feed their army, nor can they guarantee the safety of the Persian king. He must immediately get back to Asia Minor while the going is good. In practical terms, the game is over, and the Greeks have won.” Themistocles’ triumph is complete. He had persuaded the Athenians to build a navy. He had convinced them to sacrifice their entire city, to bring them victory at sea. His instincts had been proved right. He had defeated the greatest empire of the day. And he had now placed Athens in position where she could build an empire of her own. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 15 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” 29:00 – The Athenian Empire and the Ostracism of Themistocles After the years of conflict, this was a new dawn for Athens. Flush with victory, equipped with the largest fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, the tiny democracy began to grow. Barry Strauss: “The Athenians are going to have naval superiority in the eastern Mediterranean, and that is how great their victory over the Persian fleet is. And this has a momentum of its own. Before you know it, the Athenians are the head of a naval confederacy, and they’re on the road to becoming a superpower.” The Athenians founded the Delian League, alliance of Greek states designed to keep the Persians in check. Its treasury was located here, on the island of Delos. The ruins still remain. By 450 BC, this league had more than two hundred member states, but Athens was the undisputed leader. The Delian League had become Athens’ empire in all but name. But Athens’ naval supremacy also gave her economic power. She became a city at the center of a vast trading network. Goods from all over the Mediterranean flooded into her harbors. Barry Strauss: “In its heyday, Athens was ‘The Big Apple,’ or, if you will, ‘The Big Olive.’ of the eastern Mediterranean. Constant coming and going of traders. The wharves would be busy, full of people and a cacophony of language.” One contemporary author gave an account of the diversity of goods in the Athenian marketplace: “From Cyrenia, foxhounds. From the Hellespont, mackerel and all kinds of salted fish. Libya provides abundant ivory. Pagasei provides tattooed slaves. Carthage, rugs and many-­‐colored cushions.” Donald Kagan: “The Athenian empire was unprecedented in the degree of prosperity that came to it because of its role as a center of trade. The Athenians had access to a quality of life that probably no Greek mad ever had before.” Athens’ rise to economic and political supremacy occurred at lightning speed. After the Battle of Salamis, she became the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean in less than a generation. And at the city’s heart still lay her unique system of government: democracy. The system of voting using pebbles, olive leaves, or a show of hands that decided every aspect of the city’s government. Donald Kagan: “Democracy gave the Athenians a great advantage of unleashing talents, powers, opportunities that other cultures simply cannot match.” The Athenians keenly protected their democracy from any threat, foreign or domestic. Once a year, any Athenian could scratch the name of an individual onto a shard of pottery known as an ostrakon, and place it into a pot in the Assembly. The person whose name came up most would then be ostracized, banished from the city. This was the Athenians’ method of protecting their government, expelling any person they felt might become too powerful. But Athenian democracy could turn on any citizen, even its greatest war hero. Themistocles now found himself under attack. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 16 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Tony Podlecki: “The threat was gone now. His raison d’être has been been taken away. This is something he cannot understand. Themistocles reacts, perhaps in an uncharacteristically crude way. He reminded the Athenian voters of what they owed him. Voters don’t want to be reminded in any period of what they owe to their politicians. They want to be told what their politicians can do for them.” The Athenian people turned on the aging politician. Calculated, cruel, but deeply democratic, they ostracized the man who had led them to their greatest victory. Josiah Ober: “Themistocles was ostracized, I believe, because he was simply regarded as having gotten too big for his boots.” Some of the ostraka with Themistocles’ name still inscribed upon them have been found, hidden down an ancient well. Archaeologists believe that these had been prepared by Themistocles’ enemies, to be handed out to Athenian voters who couldn’t write. Themistocles never recovered from this humiliation. He was to spend the rest of his years wandering from state to state, finally dying in exile in Persia, the country whose defeat had been his greatest triumph. 36:30 – Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens The Athenians were now looking for a leader who might fulfill their new-­‐found sense of imperial glory. They found a man who seemed the perfect reflection of this new ideal, a man who would change the face of Athens forever, a man named Pericles. Donald Kagan: “There’s probably not a more important figure in the history of Classical Greece than Pericles. He was the leader of Athens at the height of its power and of its artistic achievement. He was the figure associated appropriately with bringing Athenian democracy to its climax, to its height.” But Pericles was no obvious democrat like Themistocles. For he had been born into one of Athens’ most elite families. Donald Kagan: “No one had bluer blood than Pericles. His father was a famous and successful general. His mother came from one of the most distinguished political families. Pericles was born with advantages and eminence that Themistocles lacked.” And perhaps because of his aristocratic origins, Pericles knew what the people of Athens now wanted: a city fit to rule an empire. Donald Kagan: “It seems that clear that what Pericles had in mind was to create a city whose greatness would be admired by the people who lived there, but everybody else in the Greek world, well into the future.” Pericles announced a glorious new vision to the Athenian Assembly: “All kinds of enterprises should be created which will provide inspiration for every art, find employment for every hand. We must devote ourselves to acquiring things that will be the source of everlasting fame.” Pericles turned his attention to the Acropolis, the sheer peak in the center of Athens, home of the city’s patron goddess, Athena. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 17 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” Twenty years earlier, the Persians had burnt down the temples that stood here. Ever since, the Athenians had left these ruins untouched, as a memorial to those killed in the war. But Pericles had other ideas. He proposed a massive reconstruction plan. At its center would be a new Parthenon, a temple to Athena, and it would be one of the most astonishing buildings of the ancient world. Donald Kagan: “This new construction program was of unprecedented magnitude and expense. The Parthenon in particular was extraordinarily expensive. It was filled with all sorts of architectural refinements.” Pericles planned to spend over five thousand talents in the first year alone, a total of more than a billion dollars in today’s terms. His project would require 20,000 tons of marble. The quarries at Mount Pantelicus resounded as hundreds of workmen traced and carved great blocks of marble out of the mountain. This temple would be decorated like none before. Sculptors and craftsmen were gathered from all over the Greek world. With them stood Pericles for he treated the building of the Parthenon as his own personal project. Donald Kagan: “He selected architects, he selected the men who designed the plans. Pericles was directly involved in the planning process.” Some protested that he was decking out the city like a prostitute. But when the building was completed, in only fifteen years, his critics were silenced. The Parthenon was and still is the most glorious symbol of Athens’ empire. Here was the spiritual heart of the city, the mark of her wealth, power, and artistic genius. Donald Kagan: “When you first came through the door, you would have been just stunned. You’d have been confronted immediately by an enormous, forty foot high statue of Athens, in gold and ivory and studded with jewels. I think the impression of the statue of that size and with that kind of dressing must have been truly overwhelming.” Pericles had embellished his temple like no other. Though this astonishing statue has since been lost to history, other treasures from the Parthenon have survived for over two thousand years. Most famous is the Parthenon frieze, a five hundred foot long stretch of carved marble which ran around the inner wall of the temple. The Parthenon frieze if only two and half inches thick at its maximum depth, and yet in this space the sculptors carved rank upon rank of crowded figures, a great procession of Athenians glorious and elegant. Her Pericles offered his fellow citizens a vision of themselves and their democratic state at the height of their glory. Nigel Spivery: “Democracy itself becomes heroized in that monument. It’s a very democratic thing that wants to include all those citizens who participated in beating off the first great threat to democracy, which was from Persians. These are ideals to which you can aspire.” The monuments that Pericles built for his fellow Athenians still stand on the peak of the Acropolis. They remain the most striking legacy of Classical Athens, of one of the great empires of the ancient world. 20,000 tons of perfectly proportioned marble, carved to sub-­‐millimeter accuracy. The entire design of the Parthenon is subtly designed to compensate for optical distortion. There isn’t actually a single right PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 18 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” angle in the entire temple. Pillars swell, the floor is curved, all to give the appearance of perfection. It is an astonishing testament to the achievements of Athenian democracy. 48:00 – Intellectual Life in Athens in the Golden Age But Pericles was not simply concerned with astonishing construction projects. Under his leadership, Athens would also become the intellectual center of the ancient world. The traditional center of Athenian upper class life had always been the symposium, or dinner party, where guests would gather to eat, drink, and talk. In these years, Pericles played host to an astonishing generation of individuals, figures whose achievements would shape Western Civilization. Donald Kagan: “Pericles was remarkable in that he associated with the leading minds of his day in just about every field of endeavor.” Pericles was acquainted with the world’s first scientists, figures such as Anaxagoras, the first man to realize that the moon was lit by reflected sunlight. He knew Herodotus, the world’s first historian, who wrote one of the earliest records of Greek life, and poets and authors such as Aeschylus and Euripides, whose works are still standards of world literature. Pericles was well aware of his city’s stature: “Our whole city is an education, for our citizens excel all men in versatility, resourcefulness, and brilliance.” Even Pericles’ partner, a woman named Aspasia, was unique and distinguished. Pericles had divorced his wife and set up home with a foreign woman, a woman whose occupation was hardly to be expected. For Aspasia was what was known as an hetaira, Greek for a companion. Donald Kagan: “Yes, she was, in a technical sense I guess, a prostitute, but she was more than that: a woman of charm, of style, of intellect. She really was very extraordinary. She had an extraordinary mind.” This relationship caused scandal throughout Athena, not just because of Aspasia’s profession, but because Pericles treated her as an equal, something deeply unusual in fifth century Athens. Donald Kagan: “One of the things that created such a stir was that Pericles had her participate in conversations that he had with some of the most important individual with whom he talked. There are jokes to suggest that Aspasia was the person who wrote Pericles’ speeches.” Pericles and his circle were to become one of the most famous and influential groups in western history. But in fifth century Athens, the highest achievements of art and culture were not restricted to the elite. 49:30 – Tragedy in Golden Age Athens Here in the shadow of the Acropolis sits the world’s first theater. Twice a year the Athenian population would gather here to watch a great festival, a festival of drama. Television, cinema, theater, all owe their existence to this place. For here is the home of popular entertainment. Edith Hall: “There’s one huge difference between the ancient theater and our own, and that is that it was incredibly noisy. We hear stories of how when they didn’t like a play, the audience booed and hissed PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 19 Transcript of “The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization” Episode Two: “Golden Age” and they actually got actors driven off the stage. But there are other stories that when they were going with the story and deeply involved in it, they actually all collectively burst into tears.” The favorite tales of the Greek stage were called tragedies. These were stories as shocking as a contemporary horror movie. The tragedies of great men falling from the heights, losing everything they owned. Edith Hall: “Greek tragedy shows human beings, however able, however brilliant, however intelligent, quite unable to alter the destinies which have been decreed for them.” These tragedies have fascinated audiences ever since. This nineteenth century painting shows the story of the mythical ruler Agamemnon, who was murdered by his own wife. Another tragedy told of King Oedipus, who gouged out his eyes when he discovered that he had married his own mother. These Athenians, natives of the greatest city in the ancient world, seemed to revel in seeing how frail greatness could really be. Edith Hall: “I don’t think we can use Greek tragedy to tell us exactly what happened in reality, it’s not a document of Athenian social life. But what it does do is take us directly and immediately into the psychological heart of those Athenian men. The kinds of dreams and fantasies and fears and imaginary scenarios that they came up with in the theater have to tell us just as much about them as any document of everyday reality could.” Theaters were built in every major Greek city. In Sparta, in Corinth, on the island of Delos, here in Delphi. Athens was the heart of a cultural revolution that would spread across the Mediterranean and echo around the world. Donald Kagan: “Periclean Athens seems to me to belong in the smallish collection of cities where truly great moments in the human experience took place. Culture in the broadest sense reaches a peak.” But after twenty years of building the cultural capital of the western world, Pericles and his fellow Athenians would now find that their theater and their tragedies would hold a bitter sting. Donald Kagan: “It is possible to think of Pericles, indeed I think of him, as a man with a tragic flaw, as the sort of man whose greatest qualities, the ones that make him most admirable and successful, turn out to be the seeds of his own destruction. Ultimately, it can be said, they lead to the destruction of the Athens that he prized more than anything else.” In the coming years, Pericles would embroil his city in the greatest war in the history of Classical Greece. He would see her devastated by siege and plague. And he himself would fall victim to a fate the equal of any tragic hero. PBS Empires Series, 1999 Written and Directed by Cassian Harrison Transcribed by Burke Rogers, June 2014 20