Plutarch, Pericles 32.
The comic playwright Aristophanes would later claim that Pericles started the Peloponnesian War either to distract from the scandals of Phidias or to avenge the abduction of two prostitutes working for Aspasia, but neither theory has been substantiated.2626 Relations between the Greek city-states were increasingly contentious as the unifying Persian threat receded into the past, though Pericles’ specific rationale for leading Athens into war with Sparta remains obscure. After his long tenure as a general he had to be aware that Sparta, with its tradition of military excellence and large network of wealthy client states, would be a formidable foe. Pericles may have believed that their conflicting interests made war inevitable, and that the best chance of victory for Athens would be in a quick campaign of his own initiation.
Aristophanes, Peace 605–11; and Acharnians 515ff; see also Anthony J. Podlecki, Perikles and His Circle (Routledge, 1998), 104–5, 112–13.
At first, the plan went well. Pericles’ strategy was to protect the city of Athens and depend heavily on the navy to harass the enemy while avoiding major engagements on land. The Athenian navy defeated Sparta’s ally Corinth in an early engagement at Corfu with remarkably few Athenian casualties.
By tradition, those cut down in battle were cremated on the spot and their bones brought back to Athens for burial in a common grave just outside the city in an annual ceremony. Marathon was the only exception, the soldiers who died there being considered so heroic that they got a special monument on the field of battle.2727 The war with Sparta was not (yet) seen as unusual, so the normal protocols were followed. As the winter of 431/430 approached and the campaign season ended, Athenians prepared for a state funeral and selected Pericles to give a speech in praise of the fallen.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.34.5.
Since there were not (yet) many to mourn, he did not spend much time on consolation after he had climbed onto the platform in front of the new Acropolis temple complex. His theme was, rather, the glory of Athens and why it was in the best interest of all that Athens rather than Sparta prevail in this conflict. Sparta was a monarchy with a tightly regimented society that gave little value to the rights of individuals. According to Pericles, what made Athens exceptional was the city’s experiment in democracy, through which free citizens could rise on their merits under the rule of law:
Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
Pericles then praised Athenian democracy for nurturing cultural excellence and personal responsibility, and for celebrating open public debate where each man could have his say:
We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.
Athens presented a “singular spectacle of daring and deliberation” in which courageous men “are never tempted to shrink from danger.” Moreover, said Pericles, “In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favors. . . . And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.”
Pericles declared Athens to be “the school of Greece,” for no other people were “equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian.” Indeed, the greatness of democratic Athens needed no poet like Homer to glorify it for future generations, as it was proved in deeds – and it justified the Athenians in extending their influence widely:
For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us.
Having extolled the unique character of Athens in detail, Pericles concluded that the Athenian “stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose,” and that the fallen heroes he was honoring were “men whose fame, unlike that of most Greeks, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts.”2828
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.35–46.
Pericles’ portrait of Athens was obviously idealized, like the beautiful figures on the Parthenon. The citizens of Athens could not all have been either so free of jealousy and anger or so law-abiding; and like other societies of the time, they accepted slavery and the disenfranchisement of women as proper and just. But the idealization was founded on a truth: the political liberty born under Cleisthenes and nurtured under Ephialtes – and Pericles himself – had created unprecedented opportunities for achievement, including the artistic excellence so clearly displayed in the gorgeous monuments behind Pericles as he spoke. Surely, the old statesman and general might be forgiven for assuming that even greater feats lay ahead for Athens as he prepared for the next year’s military campaign.
Athens: 429 BC
A plague had arrived in Athens along with the warm spring weather of 430 BC. Generally accompanied by a violent cough, skin blisters and raging fever, it brought death in about a week. It was wildly infectious, cutting down entire families who were crowded into the city while the Spartans controlled growing portions of the countryside. The death toll was in the thousands; there were so many victims that when a pyre was lit to cremate one individual, people would creep out of the shadows with more bodies, throw them on the fire and run away.
Weakened by the disease, Athens was less successful in the second year of its war. Sparta had invaded Attica