Download Pericles, the Golden Age of Athens

Pericles, the Golden Age of Athens
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General Information
Source:
NBC Learn
Resource Type:
Creator:
Todd Johnson
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
495 B.C. - 429 B.C.
06/04/2014
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video MiniDocumentary
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
2014
00:03:53
Description
Pericles was a statesman, orator and military general who was so influential in rebuilding ancient Athens
that the "golden age" of that city-state, from 449 - 429 B.C., is known as the Age of Pericles. This story is
produced by NBC Learn in partnership with Pearson.
Keywords
Pericles, Ancient Greece, Athens, Greece, Golden Age, Age of Pericles, Glory, Peloponnesian War,
Strategos, General, Military Leader, Leadership, Acropolis, Parthenon, Erechtheum, Temple of Athena
Nike, Athena Nike, Thucydides, "The History of the Peloponnesian War", The Plague, Sparta, Spartans,
Freedom, Equality, Citizenship, Civic Duty, Reform, Constitution, Government, Democracy
Transcript
Pericles, the Golden Age of Athens
TODD JOHNSON, reporting:
His name was Pericles - and he was so influential in ancient Athens that the "golden age" of that city© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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state, from 449 to 429 B.C. is known as the Age of Pericles.
"Pericles" - a name that means "surrounded by glory." And from his birth in the first years of the 5th
century to a noble Athenian family, Pericles lived a life of glorious splendor and privilege.
There was military glory, too, in the last years of the Persian Wars. Before he was 30, Pericles achieved
the rank of Strategos, or General, a position he would use to become the de facto leader of Athens, and
restructure the city-state in profound ways.
Some of them are still visible more than 2,000 years later, on the Acropolis, the high hill above the city:
the Erechtheum, the temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon -- white marble marvels of engineering that
were part of nationwide public works and fortification projects Pericles initiated.
But "stone monuments," said Pericles, were not as great a legacy as "what is woven into the lives of
others" - and Pericles changed the lives of Athenians by reforming the city's constitution and government.
Pericles moved to replace the aristocrats on Athens' leadership council, with a "majority vote" assembly,
that, he said, "favors the many instead of the few."
He opened civil service positions to all citizens, regardless of class; pushed for laws that afford equal
justice to all in their private differences; arranged pay for those serving on juries. He championed
freedom - of speech, political opinion, and action.
"At Athens, we live exactly as we please," the historian Thucydides quotes Pericles as saying. "Our
constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states. We are rather a pattern to others than imitators
ourselves."
One neighboring state, Sparta, saw the increasingly powerful Athens not as an ideal to follow but a threat
to eliminate.
In 431 B.C., the powerful Spartan army invaded Greece, to fight its way to Athens - and found a deserted
countryside. Pericles had collected all the residents within the walls of Athens. It was the "grand
strategy" of "Strategos" Pericles- take a strong defensive position, exhaust the attackers, fight to the
death. Hundreds did. In his famous Funeral Oration, which Thucydides recorded and paraphrased in the
History of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles honored the war dead for "choosing to die resisting, rather
than to live submitting."
Pericles and those massed behind the walls of Athens could not resist what attacked from within- the
plague. It killed thousands, and finally Pericles himself, in 429 B.C.
The Peloponnesian War finally ended in 404 B.C., the walls of Athens destroyed, the Spartans victorious.
The Age of Pericles was over. But the ideas and ideals of Pericles - on freedom, equality, citizenship
and civic duty - live on, echoed in codes of laws and constitutions written in the centuries since.
© 2008-2016 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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