Download Athenian Leader: Pericles the Great

Athenian Leader: Pericles the Great
by Barry Wright
Essay: Athenian Leader: Pericles the Great
Pages: 10
Rating: 3 stars
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In the present day, Barack Obama and many more inspirational individuals possess traits of leadership that
influence a multitude of people. Going back even farther, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks were also
leaders. In the Ancient World though, people like Alexander the Great, Ramses the Great, and Hammurabi were
significant leaders. The one common similarity among all these leaders is that they all influenced their people and
revolutionized the world. Pericles is also among this extravagant group. Pericles, leader of Greece in its Golden
Age, revolutionized the city of Athens, its government and its people.
The life of Pericles was by far very prominent. Born in 495 B.C.E., Pericles was not only a statesman, but also a
general in the army. He was intelligent, serious, and physically “perfect” (Hamish 18). As his status grew in
Athenian government, his influence on the people of Athens grew too. “Pericles was the statesman and strategos
(general) under whose rule Athens won and enforced political and cultural dominance over other Greek citystates” (Alan and Phillips OL). Unfortunately though, his fame ended a bit early. In 429 B.C.E., Pericles caught the
plague, and died the same year.
Pericles, unlike some other Athenians, was born to a high-ranking nobility family. His father, Xanthippus, was an
influential figure and prominent statesman in Athens, as was Pericles when he was older (Hamish 18). On the other
hand, his mother, Agariste, was a housewife, but also helped Pericles in becoming successful by teaching him
complex ideas about life. As you can see, both Xanthippus and Agariste had great influences on Pericles.
Not only did his parents have a great influence on Pericles, but his teachers did too. D...